How Donald Trump has unmasked his GOP rivals

Washington Post (Plum Line)

By Greg Sargent

August 24, 2015

How Donald Trump has unmasked his GOP rivals 

On ABC News’ “This Week” yesterday, George Stephanopoulos had to ask Scott Walker three times whether he favors changing the Fourteenth Amendment to end birthright citizenship before getting an answer. Three times. Here’s the final exchange:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re not seeking to repeal or alter the Fourteenth Amendment.

WALKER: No. My point is any discussion that goes beyond securing the border and enforcing the laws are things that should be a red flag to voters out there, who for years have heard lip service from politicians and are understandably angry because those politicians haven’t been committed to following through on those promises.

As I noted last week, Walker’s ongoing answers to the birthright citizenship question actually reveal a deeper and more consequential series of evasions, on the core question of what we should do about the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. Walker’s answer yesterday was of a piece with that.

When the GOP candidates are pressed on what they would do about the 11 million, the results tend not to be pretty. For instance, on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd asked Carly Fiorina about Trump’s call for ending birthright citizenship –which Fiorina rejected far more forcefully than Walker did. But then Todd sensibly followed up with this:

TODD: What do you do with the 11 million?

FIORINA: My own view is, if you have come here illegally and stayed here illegally, you do not have an opportunity to earn a pathway to citizenship. To legal status, perhaps. But I think there must be consequence.

Fiorina says that “perhaps” undocumented immigrants should have a path to legal status — provided it precludes any chance at citizenship. Okay, if you’re not willing to support legal status, then what should be done instead? Walker, for his part, has declined to endorse mass deportations, but doesn’t think we should even talk about legalization until the border is secured.

If Trump’s GOP rivals are going to be pressed on whether they agree with his positions on immigration, the focus should be more on his vow to deport the 11 million than on his call for ending birthright citizenship. If they don’t support mass deportation, what do they support? And no, claiming you might support legal status once some undefined ideal of border security is attained isn’t a real answer.

The question of what to do about the 11 million is the fundamental underlying policy dilemma that is at the core of the whole immigration debate. And it’s one many Republicans have refused to reckon with seriously for years now. They’ve called for more “enforcement of the law” while taking care to avoid saying whether this means they want maximum deportations. And they’ve claimed to be open to legalization at some point later without meaningfully defining what conditions must be established first. This is roughly where Walker is now. 

By putting the call for mass deportations out there that as an explicit policy goal, Trump has unmasked those evasions for what they are. Trump has provided an opportunity to pin down his rivals on the core immigration policy question we face. So one hopes we see more questioning along the lines Todd pursued.

Still, the birthright citizenship debate has been clarifying in one sense. There’s been a lot of talk about how Trump’s appeal is rooted more in attitude than in the specifics of what he’s saying. Yet some of the candidates appear to believe that the views of GOP primary voters require them to appear open to Trump’s call for ending birthright citizenship — which, like it or not, is a specific policy pronouncement — or at least to treat it gingerly.

For more information, go to:  www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com