When 'Progressive' Does Not Equal Pro-Migrant

Now, not a day goes by where Media Matters forgets to remind us that McCain has changed his stance on migration.  Alternet, led by Joshua Holland, has it's own special migration section, and Firedoglake has brought on David Neiwart to blog mainly on migration. 

Pro-migrant bloggers like myself, and Latino bloggers have united to create the community blog, The Sanctuary, which was recently contacted by CNN after the presidential candidates failed to answer a questionnaire we put out.  These are all good developments.  The SanctuarySphere is alive and growing. 

Still, as migration has moved from a "pet issue" to something most progressive bloggers familiar with, a tension is emerging between the pro-migrant stance and the progressive stance.  The mainstream progressive blogosphere, led by blogs such as Daily Kos, Open Left, MyDD, and Firedoglake, exists to elect "more and better Democrats" as has been stated over and over again.  My mission as a pro-migrant blogger, by contrast, is to advance the cause of migrant justice.  At times these goals overlap, but not always.

The issue of how to treat McCain is a primary example.  As a migrant advocate, my job is not to deride McCain for "flip-flopping", but to rebuke him when he sells out migrants, and to praise him when he advances the migrant cause.  In fact, the only political power that migrant advocates have in a national two-party system, is when they are able play the two major parties off of each other.

Despite the fact that McCain "flip-flopped" on migration his selection as the presumptive Republican nominee has been a very good thing for migrants.  You see, people forget that there is a subset of Democrats that are very anti-migrant. 

As McCain was battling for the Republican nomination, Democrat congressman from North Carolina, Heath Shuler, was pushing the very anti-migrant SAVE Act.  If Mitt Romney or Tom Tancredo had been selected as the Republican nominees, Democrats would have had no qualm with pushing the SAVE Act forward because migrant advocates like myself would have nowhere to run.  We'd be forced to elect a Democrat anyway.

Even with the relatively pro-migrant McCain at the forefront of the Republican party, according to a recent Politico article, "House and Senate Democrats have been outbidding the White House on spending for immigration enforcement".  Where was the mainstream progressive blogosphere when that article came out? 

It's like I said, 'Progressive' does not always mean pro-migrant.