Washington Post
By Eugene Robinson
July 1, 2013
Of
course it’s amnesty. The whole point of comprehensive immigration
reform is to bring 11 million undocumented men, women and children out
of the shadows, which means giving them some kind of legal status, which
amounts to amnesty. Otherwise, why bother?
So
the Senate did the sensible thing last week and passed a bill allowing
law-abiding immigrants who are here without papers to stay — and
eventually become citizens. Whether the House follows suit may depend on
whether Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has finally had his fill of
Washington’s most thankless job.
Seems
to me it should be an easy call. Leading the House Republican majority
is like trying to get a bunch of cats to do synchronized swimming.
Surely Boehner’s gluttony for punishment has limits.
I
say all this despite the fact that Boehner has already ruled out the
simplest course of action, which would produce the best outcome for the
nation and also boost the prospects of the Republican Party: Bring the
Senate bill up for a vote.
Under
the most likely scenario, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who
has the whole cat-herding thing down pat, would deliver virtually the
entire Democratic caucus in support. Most Republicans would vote no, but
there should be enough defections to push the measure over the 218-vote
threshold and send it to President Obama for his signature.
Obama
would be able to trumpet a centerpiece accomplishment for his second
term. But the GOP would reap far greater political gain by sending a
message to Latinos — the nation’s largest minority group — that’s
different from the customary “Go away.”
The
Republican establishment is desperate to get immigration reform over
and done with. The arithmetic is simple: In last year’s election, with
Mitt Romney advocating “self-deportation” as a solution for the
undocumented, Obama won 71 percent of the Latino vote and 73 percent of
the Asian American vote. If these fast-growing minority groups become as
loyal to the Democratic Party as African Americans are, the GOP’s
ability to compete in national elections will be in serious doubt.
Members
of the House, however, run in local elections — and most are in
districts gerrymandered to be “safe.” There are those in Boehner’s
caucus who recognize that immigration reform needs to be approved for
the good of the party, but who worry — with good reason — that if they
vote for amnesty they will invite a primary challenge from the far
right.
And
there are others, of course, who genuinely oppose any sort of amnesty
for the undocumented, much less a path to citizenship. I find this view
mystifying because it has so little to do with the real world. Once you
acknowledge that we’re not going to round up 11 million people and ship
them home, and that they’re not going to self-deport, what do you do?
Pretend all these people don’t exist?
The
Senate bill is a reasonable compromise between good policy and the
nonsense that has to be thrown in to make any legislation viable these
days. We’re going to add more fencing and more surveillance to a border
that is already heavily fenced and surveilled. We’re going to hire more
Border Patrol agents and tell ourselves that we have “secured” a
frontier that is nearly 2,000 miles long, that runs largely through
remote badlands, and that will never be the kind of hermetic seal that
some people fantasize.
Boehner
has said that rather than vote on what the Senate sent over, he will
allow the House to develop its own immigration bill. Good luck with
that.
It
is hard for me to imagine that conservative House Republicans will
support any bill that provides a path to citizenship. I can’t even
imagine most of the GOP caucus supporting a bill that gives legal status
to the undocumented — amnesty, in other words — without imposing so
many impossible conditions that the upshot is no change at all.
If
the past is any guide, Boehner’s pledge to follow the wishes of a
majority of House Republicans is as good as gold — until he breaks it.
This time, however, the issue is so fraught that he likely would face a
rebellion. Shortly after the House passed the Senate immigration bill,
irate tea-party conservatives could depose Boehner from his post.
The
nation would get the immigration reform it needs, and Boehner wouldn’t
have to teach cats to swim anymore. He should consider it a win-win.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment