This weekend the Wall Street Journal blasted House Republicans for outing themselves as the party of maximum immigrant deportation.
In an era where the nation faces unprecedented economic and political challenges, “a party whose preoccupation is deporting children is going to alienate many conservatives, never mind minority voters,” the scathing WSJ op-ed read.
There seemed good reason for the papers’ sharp tone. The House GOP passed two controversial border bills on Friday, one of which strips hard won protections from the young undocumented immigrants who voluntarily (and it turns out far too trustingly) came forward as so-called Dreamers.
In torpedoing the deepest hopes of minorities whilst high-fiving each other on the House floor the GOP have become the “Deportation Caucus,” the WSJ lamented.
“This latest immigration debacle won't help the party's image, which is still recovering from the government shutdown debacle of 2011,” the op-ed continued.
Call it the Romney reflex: you know when you’re making a bad impression but you simply cannot help yourself.
The Wall Street Journal editorial writers could certainly see where that path was leading: "Readers may recall that the last Republican in an election year to support deporting immigrant children brought here through no fault of their own was Mitt Romney. A splendid voter attraction that was," the op-ed scolded.
Having disastrously shut down the government in 2013, is it sensible in an election year to bolster the perception that the undocumented can only expect this kind of high handed treatment from the party that looks incapable of ever addressing their plight?
You can tell its been a bad day for minorities if Michele Bachmann is ecstatic. “What I saw in the last 24 hours is nothing short of remarkable,” Bachmann told the press. “I couldn’t believe it… It gutted the bill, changed the bill.”
Watching the theatrics in the House, Democrats shook their heads. “They lost control of their own caucus again,” Congressman Gerry Connolly told the press. “It’s not new. That’s what has been going on for the last four years … this is the crowd that shut down the government against the wishes of leadership.”
But it will be hard working minorities who take the most note of the House’s gutting of the President’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program of course. Because in a moment the deportation relief granted to their undocumented children who came to the U.S. as minors was stripped away.
The Dream has become a nightmare. Half a million people have been just been put at risk of deportation.
Even the Wall Street Journal can see what the increasingly right wing House fails to: voters believe Republicans keep a cold house for the undocumented. Because of that they are deeply alienating the very voters they need to take the White House.
Congressional Republicans have hurt their own party, again. The Romney reflex has become an epidemic.
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