Republicans on immigration: Cruel, cynical, irresponsible
When it comes to the current hysteria about the influx of unaccompanied Central American minors across the U.S.-Mexico border, there are fanatics who mob school buses transporting immigrant kids, haters in KKK robes, and extremists in Congress.
Early in July, Murrieta, California was the setting of one of the ugliest mob scenes since the civil rights movement. There, more than one hundred people showed up to scare the hell out of three busloads of immigrant children, screaming their heads off and forcing the vehicles to turn around toward an unplanned destination.
Fortunately, the response was different in other California cities and in other states. Ordinary people, faith leaders, and even politicians reached out to help these minors fleeing from murderous violence in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
Despite this, the bad news is that the Murrieta folks have plenty of company in other places. Recently, an Al Jazeera America reporter conducted a chilling interview with a pair of members of the Ku Klux Klan. Dressed in full Klan regalia complete with hoods, the KKK members defended their call for a “shoot to kill” policy against unauthorized border crossers.
When the reporter pointed out that they were talking about shooting little kids, one of the Klan members said in effect that if they killed a couple of them others might stop coming. When the reporter asked the interviewees whether they didn’t think this was a hateful message, one of the Klansmen opened his robe to reveal a different but equally hateful message inscribed on a t-shirt. “AIDS Cures Fags,” it read. The Klansman then told the reporter he frequently wears the shirt in public.
These two examples are ominous indicators of the mood of extreme hostility against undocumented immigrants which has been building in this country for many years. Yet there is worse news than the utter lack of compassion shown by a crowd of a few dozen zealots in Murrieta and the abominable views of a couple of Klansmen who would come off as buffoons if the KKK had not shown repeatedly just how dangerous it can be.
No, the worst news comes from the hallowed halls of the U.S. Congress. More specifically, it comes from a Republican Party that has virtually become an agent of its lunatic “tea party” faction.
This last point became crystal clear last week when a bill presented by the GOP leadership in the House of Representatives dealing with the surge of undocumented immigrant minors had to be abruptly pulled from the floor because of opposition from a of a group of ultra-extremists in the party.
The bill had to made harsher and a second draconian bill added to the package before it could be passed. As the Associated Press reports: “To reach a deal, GOP leaders had to satisfy the demands of a dozen or more conservative lawmakers who were meeting behind the scenes with Sens. Ted Cruz, R. Texas, and Jeff Sessions, R.-Alabama and taking their cues from groups like the Heritage Foundation that opposed earlier versions of the legislation.”
The AP account speaks volumes about who is really in the driver’s seat in the GOP and what is their agenda. For, the next-to-final bill unsuccessfully pushed by House GOP leaders had been extreme enough. It provided for a quick and en masse deportation of the minors without the hearing required by law. Given that what we are facing in this case is in great part a refugee crisis and not just a garden variety immigrant influx, such a policy would be a violation of international law and U.S. treaty obligations which forbid the deportation to home countries where deportees would have a well founded fear of persecution.
That version also contained a provision preventing Obama from increasing the number of people who benefit from the deportation relief program for those who had arrived in the country as children. But, as the AP reports, “that didn’t satisfy conservatives who held out for stronger steps.” They got them. The bill that passed the House provided for the deportation of half a million or more people already benefitting from the deportation relief program.
This chain of events was disturbing, given the racial undertones always present in fights over immigration. It was also proof that at least one of the two main U.S. political parties is suffering from a serious case of compassion deficit disorder.
Moreover, this was nothing but political theater of the absurd. Republicans knew any bill they would pass would be merely symbolic as the Senate had already adjourned and the president would have vetoed this kind of bill if it managed to pass Congress.
The plot of this pathetic play is to whip up right-wing voters for the 2014 midterm elections by denying the Obama administration the means from governing effectively on critical issues like immigration in order to blame it for the negative consequences.
There is, at the end of this story, possibly more than a bit of good news, however. The Republican strategy of negative or destructive governance hurts the nation but it is also self-destructive. It will eventually also harm the party with the electorate. And the sum of irresponsibility, cruelty, and cynicism displayed by the GOP at this historical juncture is another milestone in the progressive Republican alienation of the fastest-growing sector of the electorate.
