Talking Immigration to a Divided Federalist Society

The Republican Party, divided and rebellious over the President's profilgate spending and worries about first principles, continued to tear itself apart the other day over the wreckage of a six-course luncheon on the third floor of a Chinese restaurant, courtesy of CNN, the Federalist Society, and Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez.

Gutierrez had been invited by the Federalist Society, a clubby group of conservative lawyers whose symbol is the purple silhouette of James Madison, to deliver the administration line on immigration to a divided and rebellious base. I was there because I intern for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank that often receives grudging invites to mingle with the Republican faithful, though insofar as we refuse to pick sides with the two teams playing political rugby up on the Hill, relations can get a little strained.

The Secretary arrived late into plattered ruins of spring rolls, dumplings, fried rice, chicken or pork shining sticky with sweet and sour or choked in teriyaki, amid red Chinese lanterns, and red lacquered woodwork, and baroque chairs, and banquet tables. James Madison's purple visage was flanked at the podium by two bejeweled and golden dragons. He trailed Secret Service, a cameraman, staff assistants. An introduction by the D.C. chapter president included jokes about the astrological signs of Democratic congressmen and a crack at Senator Joe Biden.

Gutierrez's speech, like the President's position, was an odd mixture of realistic policy goals, technophilia, and calls for tolerance. He pushed unmanned drone patrols on the border and, most disturbingly, a biometric identification card without which no immigrant would be able to seek employment. He spoke of his own experiences coming to the US as an immigrant from Cuba via Mexico forty years before. He got a sudden, brittle flourish of applause after calling for new arrivals to learn English, as he had. The microphone volume cut in and out, the CNN cameraman looked bemused and swore, shuffling in orange polo, smiling an odd sick sort of smile everytime the audio failure obliterated a sentence.

Article Author: James Sligh

James Sligh was born and raised in the Midwest near a replica windmill. He's lived in a valley in Southern California, on a street in Boston named after a Spanish conquistador, and in the halls of the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank. …

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