President Bush is going to renew his efforts to pass some immigration reform.

Let’s face some facts.¬† I ran the numbers at Called as Seen a while back.¬† We have several times more illegal immigrants than we have the prison space to hold them until deportation.¬† So that means we are already way behind the curve.¬† We’d need to build the detention space to hold them.

The second thing we need to address is that the system has problems.¬† Big Lizards has detailed a number of them.¬† Read the whole category of Immigration Immolations, and ask yourself if you wouldn’t be saying, “Screw this.”

The third fact is that we do not always give the maximum sentence for every violation of the law.  In fact, things like plea-bargains, pre-trial diversions, and suspended sentences have been used for years, often in the interests of establishing justice from a situation.

The President’s plan falls into that category.¬† It is not an amnesty, as some self-appointed commissars on the right will claim.¬† The President has explained what he is proposing.¬† Compare that to the wild-eyed claims of a Pat Buchanan, Tom Tancredo, or even Michelle Malkin on this issue.

And finally, something else needs to be said.¬† Far too many conservatives seem to be embracing warmed-over leftovers from the pseudo-science of eugenics in this argument – this normally comes from Steve Sailer and Jared Taylor.¬† Others, like Pat Buchanan, seem to seek an America of “blood and soil”.¬† The former has been long-discredited as a science, as Michael Crichton explained very well in an essay at the end of State of Fear.¬† The latter concept is little better – in fact, any conservative should take the time Google the phrase, and decide if that is really what they stand for.

There comes a time when a politician needs to stand up to their own political base.  For Republicans, the immigration debate is that time.