MSNBC (Op-Ed)
By David Leopold
August 7, 2015
On
November 7, 2012, the idea of Republicans embracing comprehensive
immigration reform was a no-brainer. That was the day after Mitt Romney
got hammered by Hispanic voters
who rejected his candidacy for president by a 44 point margin.
GOP
leaders stunned by the major electoral smackdown couldn’t get to fixing
the immigration system fast enough. “While I believe it’s important for
us to secure our borders
and to enforce our laws,” Speaker John Boehner said the next day, “I
think a comprehensive approach is long overdue, and I’m confident that
the president, myself, others, can find the common ground to take care
of this issue once and for all.”
Fast forward to last night in Cleveland.
“We
need to build a wall, and it has to be built quickly,” Republican
presidential front-runner Donald Trump declared to resounding applause.
Sadly, and dangerously for
the GOP, that’s what has become of the party’s official platform on
immigration.
There
were 10 Republican hopefuls on stage last night. Not one took issue
with Trump’s ludicrous contention that the immigration problems in the
United States can be solved
by building a wall. Not one pointed out that illegal immigration has
fallen to its lowest levels in 20 years and that the nation’s
undocumented population has dropped by 1 million since 2007. And, sadly,
not one offered a detailed, thoughtful policy proposal
in response to Trump’s doubling down on his hateful message about
Mexican immigrants.
To
the contrary, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is by many considered a
thoughtful, moderate presidential contender, pandered to Trump on
immigration, declaring that he “is
touching a nerve because people want the wall to be built. They want to
see an end to illegal immigration. They want to see it, and we all do.
But we all have different ways of getting there. And you’re going to
hear from all of us tonight about what our ideas
are.”
To
be fair, some Republican candidates alluded to fixing the immigration
system, but only after “securing the border” – which has become more
nuanced politician-speak
for “we’ll never do immigration reform because we can always claim the
border is not secure enough.” Jeb Bush, who’s gone further than any of
his GOP rivals in suggesting he’d support comprehensive immigration
reform, reiterated his support for some sort of
“earned legal status” for undocumented immigrants, but was
disappointingly short on specifics.
Unfortunately,
despite Kasich’s promise earlier in the evening, none of the GOP
candidates outlined serious proposals to fix the nation’s broken
immigration system.
Nor
is the GOP’s failure on immigration confined to the presidential
candidates. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared yesterday
that there would be no immigration
reform this year, claiming that “the atmosphere for dealing with that
issue in the wake of” President Obama’s executive actions on
deportations “is not appropriate” – a position that makes little sense
given that Obama’s executive immigration actions have
been enjoined by a federal judge at the request of GOP governors and
attorneys general.
The
refusal to embrace or even talk about comprehensive immigration reform
demonstrates a major disconnect with Republican constituents across the
country. Despite the
hard-line presidential campaign rhetoric, recent polling shows the GOP
candidates are at odds with the majority of their voters. Recent polling
has found 53% to 55% of Republican voters favor some sort of path to
earned legal status for the 11 million undocumented
immigrants in the U.S. That means that most Republicans are ultimately
pragmatic; they want immigration policy solutions, not pandering to the
extremists in the party.
The
takeaway is clear: When it comes to immigration, the GOP candidates
didn’t do the party’s eventual nominee any favors last night. It’s one
thing to veer to the right
during a Republican presidential primary to capture the base of the
party. But the GOP presidential hopefuls – including real estate mogul
and reality TV star Donald Trump – would be wise to heed the words of
Katie Packer Gage, Romney’s 2012 deputy campaign
manager, who recently cautioned the GOP not to repeat her former boss’s
mistake on immigration. Romney’s championing of the mean-spirited,
inhumane and unworkable policy of “self-deportation” may have helped
earn him the support of party extremists, but it
drove him over the cliff in the general election.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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