Following the immigration fiasco that splintered the party into warring factions, the Republican Party is attempting to transform that bone of contention into an olive branch to appease their base disgruntled by efforts by some party leaders to ram through a Senate immigration reform bill hated by the GOP grassroots. Party heavyweights such as Senators Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.) and his fellow Arizona senator and presidential candidate John McCain supported the defeated reform initiative. They formed part of the bipartisan group of senators who framed the failed bill. But according to the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and other media sources these same men are now the spearheading force behind a new bill that is in many respect radically different in emphasis to the aborted bill.

Unlike the defeated bill that put as much emphasis on enforcement as on charting a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, the new legislation has a single-minded focus on enforcement. Los Angeles Times writer Nicole Gaouette, who seems to be their house expert on immigration issues, has an interesting piece on the new developments.

Conservative Republican senators on Thursday introduced a bill bristling with immigration enforcement measures, the latest in a broad range of efforts across government to crack down on illegal immigration after the Senate's failure earlier this summer to pass a broader overhaul. The bill would tighten enforcement on the border, in the country's interior and at work sites. It would make it easier for agents to seize smugglers' cars at the border, mandate jail time for individuals who overstay their visas — currently 40% of all people here illegally — and turn closed military bases into detention facilities.

Gaouette gives some insight into the thinking of the movers of the bill.

The bill's sponsors, who include both strong supporters and staunch opponents of the recently failed legislation, said the legislation was meant to restore government credibility on immigration enforcement and thereby smooth the path to comprehensive overhaul.

"It's a place people can go to see what we mean when we say 'enforcement,' " said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who described the bill as "a compendium of all the law enforcement-related things we thought were important in the debate."

The new measure comes as momentum is building behind bolstering enforcement measures at all levels of government. The Bush administration is to unveil a rule making it tougher for businesses to hire illegal immigrants.

And an upcoming report is expected to show that state and local governments introduced record numbers of immigration initiatives in the first six months of 2007.

Lawmakers and others who want tighter restrictions on immigration contend that if existing laws are more strictly applied, illegal immigrants will eventually leave of their own accord. But the rapid proliferation of enforcement measures concerns immigrant rights advocates.

Why this sudden hard turn to the right on the issue by these men, particularly by McCain? Apparently the Arizona Senator, who fell heavily out of favor with the GOP base over his support for the failed reform, is attempting to use his new hardline stance to win back the grassroots and revive his failing campaign. McCain was touted as an early favorite for the GOP nomination. But his support for the failed comprehensive reform bill so enraged the GOP base that, according to a new NBC/WSJ poll, barely 17 percent of them continue to back his bid as against 33 percent for former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and 20 percent for former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson who hasn't even formally declared his candidacy. What's more, in the second quarter fundraising period, McCain barely managed to raise $11.2 million, less than the $13.5 million he got in the first quarter. He is reported to be so cash-strapped that he was forced to carry out a major downsizing of his campaign staff to stay afloat financially. Will McCain's re-calibration on the issue help salvage his campaign? Only time can tell. The GOP presidential nomination race this campaign season has been extraordinarily fluid and only the foolhardly dare make hard and fast predictions at this moment of the race. McCain can literally dissolve and dissappear from the race just as he can stage a storming comeback if by some favorable confluence of factors the political wind pushes against his back rather than against his front as has been happening lately.

In the meantime the new GOP enforcement-only immigration bill that McCain is co-sponsoring is arriving in the Senate just as the Homeland Security Department is reported to be planning a massive nationwide crackdown on businesses hiring illegal immigrants. Federal authorities aim to use the crackdown to strike fear, if not terror, into the executives of such companies and the immigrants they hire and compel businesses into self-purging of their illegal immigrant workforce. The ultimate aim of the crackdown is to make it increasingly difficult for illegal immigrants to find employers willing to hire them, thus making illegal immigration to the U.S. a less and less attractive enterprise. The thinking is that if people intending to illegally immigrate to the U.S. to find jobs know that fewer and fewer employers would risk hiring them, they wouldn't come in the first place. What drives much of the illegal immigration to the U.S. is jobs and if intending illegal immigrants see no prospects of jobs in the U.S. they would stay on their side of the border. Suzanne Gamboa and Anabelle Garay of the Washington Post provide more details about the looming crackdown.

Employers across the country may have to fire workers with questionable Social Security numbers to avoid getting snagged in a Bush administration crackdown on illegal immigrants.

The Department of Homeland Security is expected to make public soon new rules for employers notified when a worker's name or Social Security number is flagged by the Social Security Administration.
The rule as drafted requires employers to fire people who can't be verified as a legal worker and can't resolve within 60 days why the name or Social Security number on their W-2 doesn't match the government's database.

Employers who don't comply could face fines of $250 to $10,000 per illegal worker and incident.

Will the new federal crackdown on illegal immigration work to stanch the flow of immigrants into the country? Will the crackdown on businesses dissuade enough of them to stop hiring illegal immigrants? Again only time can tell.