Immigration group: Opposing amnesty is part of the "war on women" or something

I feel like we’re on the cusp of a political golden age in which literally every issue can and will be reduced to some form of identity politics, no matter how far-fetched. And that includes issues like comprehensive immigration reform which, for the left, are already framed as a different form of identity politics.

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Give it a few more years and lefties will be attacking fracking for being anti-gay somehow.

A coalition of advocacy groups wants to make the next front in the “war on women” all about immigration reform…

“Unless we actually have action from House leadership … to move a bill forward … we will continue to push and push and push and make sure that women voters in November understand exactly who has blocked immigration reform,” said Pramila Jayapal, chairwoman of We Belong Together, a coalition of women’s groups aimed at mobilizing women in favor of immigration reform.

The women’s strategy is threefold: A series of protests and fasts involving more than 5,000 women nationwide timed to International Women’s Day on March 8; mobilizing female voters to the polls in the midterm elections; and building a base of female activists among immigrant and nonimmigrant women alike…

Among the more than 60 organizations involved in this effort are YWCA USA, the Gamaliel Foundation, the Service Employees International Union, and the Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Accusing Republicans of hating Latinos isn’t demagogic enough, so they’re going to apply some extra pressure towards breaking the logjam in Congress by accusing them of hating women too. If you’re wondering what the peg is for the argument that this is somehow, uniquely, a “women’s issue,” Politico points to this NBC poll from last fall showing that 67 percent of women support a path to citizenship, a number that rises to 78 percent if you specify conditions (back taxes, learning English, etc). Left unmentioned: The same poll shows support among men at 60 and 74 percent, respectively. To put that last number in perspective, there’s more of a gap between women and men in how much they prefer dogs to cats than there is on whether they support citizenship for illegals with some prerequisites. Is America’s relative coolness towards cats as pets part of the war on women too?

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And incidentally, this tactic really isn’t “new,” just as amnesty groups switching their tactics to anger and confrontation isn’t new either. The group spearheading it, We Belong Together, is an initiative put together by organizations that promote domestic workers; most domestic workers are women, ergo immigration reform must necessarily be a Women’s Issue. They’ve been pushing the “war on women” angle for at least three months, replete with some pro forma supporting blather from Gloria Steinem this past winter. Could be that Democrats had this on the backburner while they were waiting for Boehner to make up his mind on whether to proceed with a bill, but now that it looks like he’s backing away, they’ve decided it’s time to double the identity-politics pressure. Won’t work — the “war on women” is mostly code for reproductive policy differences, not stuff like this with only tangential gender politics involved — but a little extra demagoguery never hurt Democrats.

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David Strom 5:20 PM | May 01, 2024
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