Bloomberg
By David Weigel
May 6, 2015
Advocates
can point to a dozen or so moments when the 2013 Senate immigration
bill died. The final moment—the Seahawks interception toss at the one
yard line—was the surprise
defeat of then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Virginia. Cantor
was seen to favor some popular, small immigration policy change once
most of the GOP had escaped primary election season. “There’s a Biblical
root and a tradition in this country that says
we don’t hold children liable for their parents’ acts, and when you
have kids who may have been brought here, let’s say, at 2 months old,
unbeknownst to them, and they’ve been here all their lives and they want
to serve in our military,” he told one interviewer.
Days
later, he was out of a job. His successor, Representative David Brat,
is working now to strip language out of the National Defense
Authorization Act related to the
“Enable DREAMers to Serve in Uniform” amendment. Introduced last month
by Representative Ruben Gallego, it passed even though the freshman
Democrat was, well, a freshman Democrat. It would give the secretary of
defense the freedom to enlist people eligible
for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival. And that is seen as a clear
threat by Brat and Alabama Representative Mo Brooks.
“Do
members of the House Armed Services Committee who voted for this
amendment really believe that these are jobs Americans won’t do?” asked
Brooks in a statement. “It
is unconscionable that certain members of Congress seek to use
America's military as a bargaining chip in a bid to cement the
president’s unconstitutional amnesty actions. We can't speak for other
Congressmen, but, as for ourselves, we were elected to promote
and protect the interests of American citizens, not illegal
immigrants.”
“Senator McCain should stick to his job in the Senate and let the House do our job.”
Representative Ruben Gallego
That
chestnut—“jobs Americans won't do”—isn't usually heard in regard to the
military. If there's a crisis of qualified, native-born recruits being
turned away from the
recruiting station to make room for DREAMers, it's been happening in
secret. Gallego, an Iraq War veteran, has happily joined the fight with
Brat, Brooks, and any Republican who's allowing the amendment to die.
“Senator
[John] McCain last night said the Senate wouldn't include this language
in their version of the NDAA because the House would never accept that
language in the
bill,” Gallego said Wednesday in a statement. “Senator McCain should
stick to his job in the Senate and let the House do our job. This
amendment is about defense and what is in the best interest of our
nation and our military.”
It
has another function; it coaxes out the opponents of reform, at a time
when the people rebranding the GOP would rather discuss their own
efforts to allow DREAMers to
serve in the military.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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