Sunday, February 9, 2014

The GOP's REAL Immigration "Principles"

Last summer, in what remains a very special week for me, my wife and millions of other immigration activists, the U.S. Senate did something that might shock fans of the Republican-held sector of Congress:  It legislated, and did so by taking aim at the seemingly unreachable target of comprehensive immigration reform.  It took persistence, hard work, and a lot of compromising by Democrats and Republicans.  It produced a far from perfect result.  But it produced a result that everyone could live with, including President Obama and attendees of the American Immigration Lawyers Association's annual conference, which was taking place even as the bipartisan 68-32 vote approved the bill.

Except for the House of Representatives, which has not only declared its intention to never take up the bill, but has spent the past seven months looking for reasons for continuing to do nothing.  The latest manifestation of this process is the House GOP caucus' list of "principles" on the subject of immigration.

Now, there are aspects of this list to both like and dislike.  On the one hand, as I have previously written, it is enforcement-heavy to a degree that most Americans, increasingly concerned about government "snoopervising," would and should reject out of hand.  On the other, it appears to finally accept the fact that we aren't going to deport 11 million human beings that, documented or otherwise, have built lives in this country that are worthy of protecting--lives, in fact, that contribute greatly to the lives of American citizens.

But why a list of "principles"?  The House is a legislative body.  Its purpose is to produce legislation, in cooperation with the Senate and President.  Why not produce its own legislative version of CIR?  For that matter, why not hole a vote on the Senate bill, and use the amendment process to achieve the same result?

Either or both of those things could and should have happened by now--and would, if House Republicans had leadership worthy of the name.  Instead, it has the chain-smoking, bourbon-swilling John Boehner, who is being forced in public to mumble about "principles," a "step-by-step" process that would proceed at the state of sludge, and maybe, one day, a final "take-it-or-leave-it" bill.

In fairness to Boehner, his caucus is not cohesive enough for anyone to hold it together.  It consists of a handful of moderates and a burgeoning wingnut faction that prevents it from being anything like a true majority.  Had the Senate bill been put to a vote, enough moderate Republicans would have joined with all of the minority Democrats to send to Obama for signature, with or without a Senate conference.  And that result would have torn the Republican Party apart.

Which brings me to the real reasons why the House can do no better than "principles" when it comes to immigration.  Politics, as succinctly described here.  And race, as described here.  Sadly, these are its only real "principles."

And that begs the question:  if a party can be so dominated by politics and racism that it can do nothing of practical good for anyone but itself, can it have very long to live?  I don't think so.  I think that the Republicans may, in fact, be so worried about the political harm in 2014 that would come about by acting on immigration that they have no idea of the disaster they will face in 2016 if they do nothing about it at all.  Politics, as I have said before, is as generational as it is local, and the next political generation is a multi-cultural, multi-national, multi-ethnic cohort.  And that is why Bill Kristol is wrong in thinking that immigration is not an urgent issue.  It is very urgent, for his party and his country.  I care not one fig for his party but, for the sake of the country we both share, I hope that he and the rest of the VRWC figure this out soon.

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