'Make 'Em All Citizens? Yes!'

Someone just let 12 million cats out of the bag . . .

A lefty pundit has admitted what the Obama admin likely thinks but dare not say: that he would like to grant citizenship to all 12 million illegal immigrants in the USA.

Chris Hayes of The Nation made his candid comment during an exchange with Pat Buchanan about the Arizona immigration law on today's Morning Joe.

 

PAT BUCHANAN: Why would 70% of Arizonans--do you think they're bad people?--why would 70% support this law?

CHRIS HAYES: No. Of course not. Look, I don't think anything.

BUCHANAN: What's your answer to solving it?

HAYES: My answer to solving it is comprehensive immigration reform.  There are three planks to it that everybody talks about --

BUCHANAN: Make 'em all citizens?

HAYES: Yeah. Yes!

BUCHANAN: You're going to get 20 million more.

HAYES: No. I actually think this is true: I think there is an equilibrium level of inflow to the country, and I think that has to do with our labor markets.

. . .

JOE SCARBOROUGH: I want to respond to a point that you made, that if we wave a wand and grant amnesty to 12 million illegal immigrants, that that's going to create equilibrium.  That's what Ronald Reagan thought in the mid-1980s and all it did after Reagan granted amnesty to, what?, five million --

BUCHANAN: Three million.

SCARBOROUGH: Three million illegal immigrants.  All it did was send a message to a lot of people in Mexico: come on up. There's not going to be any problem with it.

So now we know what "comprehensive immigraton reform" is really about.  Will the MSM take notice of Hayes' impolitic bout of candor?

Note: as Noel Sheppard noted, Scarborough yesterday called the Arizona law "un-American."  At the top of today's show, a somewhat abashed Joe mentioned that he had received many emails telling him it was easy to take his position while sitting up in New York, far from the problems on the southern border.