but why specifically 2008 and why all the republicans? (you don’t see the democrats getting tough; Obama is overtly pro-illegal)
part of it is backlash against mccain and part of it was because of Duncan Hunter’s presence in the race. He made a difference.
California is the canary in the coalmine for what our present immigration policy is doing to America. The Democrats like what has happened to California, so of course they aren't going to get tough. As usual, the Republicans were slow to see an obvious disaster that was coming straight at them. Now that they've seen the disaster, some of them belatedly want to stop it from spreading.