GOP immigration stances harden ahead of debate

Arizona Republic

By Dan Nowicki

August 6, 2015

GOP immigration stances harden ahead of debate 

As the top 10 Republican presidential contenders gather for the first prime-time debate of the primary season, the issue that propelled Donald Trump to center stage tonight in Cleveland — immigration — promises to continue roiling the race.

Trump and several of his rivals have slowly begun fleshing out their policy ideas on border security and enforcement, detailing positions that resonate with the GOP’s influential anti-immigration wing but that immigration-reform advocates see as pandering and a ploy by the others to out-Trump Trump on the emotional issue.

The celebrity billionaire developer, whose scalding rhetoric about Mexican immigrants rocketed him to Republican front-runner status, recently dipped into policy when he told CNN last week that if elected he would force undocumented immigrants to return to their countries of origin before some would be allowed to return legally to the United States.

“I would get people out and I would have an expedited way of getting them back into the country so that they can be legal,” Trump told CNN. The “bad dudes” would be gone for good, he said.

The idea is reminiscent of a proposal called “touchback” that came up in past immigration-reform debates but has never gained traction because it was seen as unrealistic.

Meanwhile Jeb Bush, former Florida governor viewed by many as the most moderate of the top Republican hopefuls on immigration, released a six-point plan to bolster border security, which he said must be a precursor to addressing the legal status of any of the more than 11 million immigrants estimated to be living in the country without authorization.

Bush’s points include a flexible and “forward-leaning” Border Patrol, new technology to watch the border, improved border infrastructure and better access to federal lands, electronic verification of workers, and crackdowns on visa over-stayers and so-called “sanctuary cities” that have policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

“These six proposals, when combined with a rigorous path to earned legal status, would realistically and honestly address the status of the 11 million people here illegally today and protect against future illegal immigration,” Bush said Monday in a written statement. “While passions run high on this issue, there is no rational plan to deport millions of people that the American people would support.”

Other candidates are trying to stake out territory on the immigration issue. While a noisy segment of the conservative base opposes any effort to provide what they consider amnesty for undocumented immigrants, pro-business elements of the Republican Party generally support immigration reform. And following Mitt Romney’s 2012 loss to President Barack Obama, national GOP leaders recommended addressing the issue to rehabilitate the party’s toxic reputation with Latino voters.

Still, it’s the conservative activists who traditionally are the most motivated in early presidential states such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. This creates a pull toward conservative immigration positions to win the nomination that may become a liability when the White House is on the line in the general election.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a former supporter of comprehensive immigration reform, continues to stand by the harder anti-immigration line he drew this year, even raising the possibility of curbing legal immigration.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in an attempt to distance himself from the 2013 “Gang of Eight” immigration reform bill he helped write, says he now rejects such a comprehensive approach and instead supports tackling the issue piecemeal, with border security coming first. The bipartisan Gang of Eight bill was opposed by some on the right because it offered a path to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants.

Other Republicans seeking the White House are still trying to distinguish themselves as illegal-immigration opponents by one-upping each other, something that is increasingly difficult as the flamboyant and media-savvy Trump occupies that space in the race.

“Illegal immigration is something I’ve been leading the fight on for a long, long time,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Tuesday in an interview on Fox News. “In the Senate, when the Gang of Eight amnesty bill was brought forward, I was proud to help lead the fight to stop the Gang of Eight amnesty bill. ... When you are dealing with sanctuary cities, when you’re dealing with the crimes that come from illegal immigrants, I’ve been dealing with that and fighting against that for over a decade.”

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who missed the cut to participate in tonight’s prime-time debate and polls near the bottom of the 17-candidate GOP pack, this week called for mayors of sanctuary cities to be criminally prosecuted as accomplices when undocumented immigrants commit crimes in their jurisdictions.

Unlike Rubio, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., another Republican member of the Gang of Eight, has stood by the Senate-passed immigration legislation, but his national poll numbers are even worse than Jindal’s.

“I think they are all trying to accomplish different things,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a liberal organization that advocates for comprehensive immigration reform.

“Walker is trying to appeal to the right, and be to the right of who he thinks will be left standing, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio,” Sharry said. “Jeb Bush is trying to shore up his enforcement credentials so that he is not seen as soft. Marco Rubio is still trying to explain his way out of his Gang of Eight participation instead of having the guts to stand up for it and defend it. Cruz is trying to be the person who inherits the Trump vote should Trump implode.”

A big question leading up to the Cleveland debate is how the other candidates will engage with Trump on immigration, and whether they will challenge his emerging deportation policy, which even many on the right argue is not feasible.

“We will find them, and we will get them out,” Trump said on CNN. “It’s feasible if you know how to manage. Politicians don’t know how to manage. We have to bring great people into this country. I love the idea of immigration, but it’s got to be legal immigration.”

Former Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., in the mid-2000s collaborated with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, on an immigration-reform bill that also would have required undocumented immigrants to leave the country before they could re-enter with a quasi-green card. But Kyl told The Arizona Republic on Wednesday that the idea is unworkable.

“I have never thought that it was realistic to expect illegal immigrants to voluntarily return to their country of origin or to have a legal requirement that they must do so,” said Kyl, who in 2007 negotiated another, ultimately unsuccessful, immigration-reform package with the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. “America is not going to enforce that anyway. It would be virtually impossible to enforce.”

Even some immigration critics don’t see Trump’s proposal or other “touchback” variations as an effective way to deal with the issue.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s very in-depth or that he has a well-developed policy position on it, but it sounded like some kind of ‘touchback’ thing,” said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., organization that supports less immigration and more immigration enforcement. “But he hasn’t considered all the issues surrounding that. Like, if you could get everybody to leave, then why not just do that?”

Most immigrants would avoid having to leave the country because it would disrupt their lives and they would have anxiety about whether they would meet the criteria to return, he said.

“The ‘touchback’ thing is one of those kind of technocratic solutions that, as soon as you begin to unpack it, you find is filled with silly contradictions and impracticality,” Camarota said.

Mass deportation also would be an expensive undertaking. The liberal Center for American Progress several years ago calculated that a five-year “federal dragnet” to round-up all undocumented immigrants would cost $200 billion.

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