The most obvious fact about immigration in American politics today is this: The word “comprehensive” is poison.
The second most obvious fact ought to be this: Those who celebrate the defeat of any legislation to reform immigration law on the grounds these efforts only reward illegal behavior are winning the battles but losing their own war.
We saw this Thursday, when House Republicans couldn’t muster the votes for a pro-security emergency-spending bill.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had come out against the measure, because he didn’t want his Democrats having to explain — in a year their majority is up for grabs — why they opposed such a reasonable measure. President Obama said he’d veto it.
Unfortunately, it was also opposed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who believed Reid’s threats to use it to resurrect (and sneak through) the Senate’s original comprehensive reform package.
But here’s why its defeat is a defeat for Republicans. Think of it this way: When it comes to, say, marriage, stopping same-sex legislation means traditional marriage — the status quo — prevails.
But when it comes to immigration, the status quo is illegality. It’s the status quo that rewards people who cross our borders illegally — and punishes law-abiding people who follow the rules and wait years.
Nor is the status quo static.
In the absence of a fix from Washington, states and cities are filling the vacuum, addressing issues from the education of innocent, foreign-born children brought here illegally by their moms and dads to innocent Americans who find themselves in car accidents with illegal — and uninsured — drivers.
Some of these state responses, such as Arizona’s, do indeed crack down. But others work to take the pressure off illegality.
These measures range from Mayor de Blasio’s new municipal-ID cards in New York City, to legislation such as California’s Dream Act that make illegals eligible for financial aid, to this week’s call by the New York State Sheriffs’ Association for its members to reject “detainers” — Immigrations and Customs Enforcement requests to local and state authorities to hold foreign-born detainees until they can be investigated and sometimes deported.
The House measure the Republicans rejected was aimed at changing this sorry dynamic. With comprehensive reform dead, the House GOP leadership put forth a measure that would have done three infinitely reasonable things:
1) Provide for the care and processing of the tens of thousands of children whose arrival here is now overwhelming the system.
2) Make some improvements in border security by, for example, opening up areas now denied to the Border Patrol.
3) Close a loophole in a 2008 law that treats children from Central America differently from children from Mexico, delaying their return to their homelands and families.
To persuade those still on the fence, the GOP leadership scheduled a second vote on another measure. This one would have reined in Obama’s authority to use his executive powers to legalize people who are here illegally.
Now, if the Democratic Party were really interested in a bipartisan reform, it would also have embraced this measure as a first step. But they’re more interested in immigration as a wedge issue.
That’s why Reid waved the threat of comprehensive reform, and why Obama will no doubt use the GOP’s failure to pass this bill as an opportunity to inflame the situation further.
The worst part is Republicans have all but invited him to do so.
Incredibly, even as the House Republican majority proved unable to make the teeniest step forward, they issued a statement calling on Obama to take “the numerous steps the president can and should be taking right now, without the need for congressional action” to resolve the border crisis.
This from the same folks suing the president for abusing his authority by going over the heads of Congress.
All along, the law-and-order brigade opposing comprehensive reform have said they want to approach any immigration fixes on a bill-by-bill path, starting with securing the border. The measure withdrawn Thursday gave them the opportunity to do just that.
In rejecting it, they’ve rejected their own strategy. Not to mention a small step toward an immigration system that is fair, sensible and serves our interests.
The House Republicans will meet again Friday morning. Unless they can pass this bill, they’ll leave town having given Sen. Reid the ammunition to call them hypocrites for doing nothing on the border and handed President Obama an excuse for more unilateral action via another doubtful executive order.
And once again those two obvious truths re-emerge. First, that comprehensive immigration reform is dead.
And second, that by refusing to pass even a modest border-first measure, Republicans have struck a blow for a status quo that every day works against them.