GOP warns Bush against approving Americans

In an odd move, Republicans from the House have warned Bush about his stance on immigration:

House conservatives yesterday issued a dire warning to President Bush and Republican leadership that they will pay a devastating political price if they proceed with a guest-worker program or anything resembling amnesty for illegal aliens before securing the borders and enforcing existing immigration laws.

"They will remember in November," Rep. J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Republican, said of voters nationwide. "And many of those who have stood with our Republican majority in the last decade are not only angry, many of them plan to be absent from the polls" this year when the entire House and one-third of the Senate is up for re-election.

Mr. Hayworth and more than a dozen other House Republicans pointed to polls that show overwhelming support for their strict-enforcement stance and advised Mr. Bush and GOP leaders in both chambers to "listen to the common sense of the American people."

Why is it odd? Well, a majority of Americans actually favor the plans put forth by the President, and a strong majority supports the Kennedy/McCain bill that would offer a legalization process for those already here:

In the telephone survey of 1004 adults, conducted Wednesday and Thursday, 79% say they favor a guest worker program that would allow illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. for a fixed period of time - the main provision of the bill proposed by Senators John McCain and Edward Kennedy that is now under fierce debate in Congress. Only 47% of those polled say they support the tougher measure backed by some House conservatives, deporting all illegal immigrants back to their home countries.

Although Americans want to give illegal immigrants the chance to work in the U.S. temporarily and even earn citizenship - 78% say illegal immigrants who learn English, have a job and pay taxes ought to have a chance at it - they also want better enforcement both at the border and inside the country.

If one needs further proof that this is the GOP trying to get red meat to the base, I'm not sure what it would be.

*UPDATE* How's this quote from the Mayor of Palm Desert, California, Jim Ferguson:

"If you go to a Republican pollster right now they'll tell you to kick the s--- out of illegal immigrants because it goes off the charts in terms of voter reaction. I'd rather do what's right and be out of office than what's wrong and be in office."