Capital's pariah on immigration is now a power

By Rachael L. Swarns, New York Times

December 24, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24immig.html

For nearly a decade, Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, has been dismissed by his critics as little more than an angry man with a microphone, a lonely figure who rails against immigration and battles his own president and party.

But last week... Republicans rallied around Mr. Tancredo to defy the president and produce the toughest immigration legislation in more than a decade....

Mr. Tancredo did not get everything he wanted. He still wants a moratorium on legal immigration, soldiers on the border, a longer fence (and one along the border with Canada) as well as a law that would deny citizenship to children born to parents who are not citizens or permanent residents....

He has infuriated members of his own party by attacking President Bush....

"What kind of guy is this," Mr. Tancredo said of Mr. Bush, "who picks and chooses the laws he enforces?"

The [recent House] legislation would also require the mandatory detention of some [illegal] immigrants, would withhold some federal aid from cities that provide [illegal] immigrants with services without checking their legal status and would decrease the number of legal immigrants admitted annually by eliminating a program that provides 50,000 green cards each year.

"This is a gesture to the xenophobic wing of the party, and that is alarming," said Cecilia Muņoz, a vice president at the National Council of La Raza [The National Council of THE RACE]....

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