Boehner was right. Immigration reform is too hard for GOP.
By Victor Landa, NewsTaco
The problem with the GOP’s stance on immigration is that it’s untenable. It’s untenable because it’s contradictory, and it’s contradictory because it’s not serious.
If the Republicans were serious about immigration reform – as they have said they are, of late – and about attracting Latino voters, they’d have a plan that resembled a path more than a maze with no exit.
This is what I mean: The GOP says that any advance on immigration reform rests on securing the border. But they also say they don’t trust President Obama will enforce the law. Neither will they define border security.
What is the goal?
So immigration reform, ala GOP, is an unspecific goal that they don’t trust will be met.
In the mean time, Joe Barton (R-TX) has offered a plan that leads with tossing money and men at border security, and follows with a limited path to citizenship for children only.
Latinos, in general, want more. Latinos would like a plan that doesn’t create a permanent sub-class of resident. We’ve already got a version of that.
A clear goal would be good.
If Republicans are insistent on border security, a well established target would help to clarify the honesty of their intent. Not that a target would win Latino votes, but it would make it easier to read their purpose.
Trust in the President is another thing altogether.
Latinos have lost trust in Obama as well.
But for different reasons.
Obama has beaten all of his predecessors on an overall deportation count. Latinos have lost trust in his intention to act on immigration reform when he’s filling a record number of deportation buses heading south.
Republicans seem to be turning a blind-eye to that. They also ignore the dwindling number of immigrants making their way north across the border. Border security is a Republican rallying point, and an open-ended goal suits their election purposes well.
What does his mean for CIR?
Mas teatro.
Speaker John Boehner this week made a public spectacle of mocking his GOP colleagues on immigration: “Ohhhh. This is too hard,” he said, mimicking the House
GOP. A day later he back-tracked.
Boehner was right. It’s more than too hard, it’s impossible to reach a goal that isn’t set and will be handed over to a man they don’t trust.
[Caricature by DonkeyHotey/Flicker]