GOP
House Speaker John Boehner recently called border security "laughable." Boehner
was not being funny. That sentiment could have a major blowback effect in the
House on the deal that the four GOP Senators crafted to take the issue of border
security off the contentious table and move the immigration bill to final
passage. The GOP has relentlessly latched onto the issue of the U.S.'s
supposedly leaky borders for more than a decade to torpedo a deal on immigration
reform. This time is no different. The instant that it became apparent that
there was real political steam behind finally putting a comprehensive
immigration reform bill on the White House desk to become law, GOP leaders dug
into their bag of tricks and dusted off
the old border insecurity ploy to stall, water down, or even eventually kill an
immigration reform bill.
But
with the shellacking that the GOP presidential Mitt Romney took from Hispanic
voters in the 2012 presidential election, and the grim prospect that the GOP
could be mortally wounded even more in 2014 and 2016 by Hispanic voters the
party, could not simply dig its heels in in the old way on immigration reform.
Dredging up border security as the prime bargaining chip seems safe enough. It
gives the appearance that the GOP really wants immigration reform this time.
But, it insists, that making a fighting issue of safe and secure borders is
simply in the public and national interest. GOP Senator Marco Rubio, the party's
point man on immigration reform, said bluntly "the
only way we're going to pass an immigration reform law out of the House and
Senate so the president can sign it is, that it has real border security
measures within it."
This
is simply more GOP mythmaking at its worst. The U.S. spends nearly $20 billion
annually on border security measures and that figure will be ramped up even
higher in 2014. That's more spent on border security than ever and far more than
the federal government spends on all other federal law enforcement agencies
combined. The massive spending has paid off. Nearly every inch of the border is
patrolled round the clock by waves of more than 20,000 border patrol agents and
at least six unmanned aircraft. Both outgoing FBI Director Robert Mueller,
Attorney General Eric Holder, and Homeland Security officials have publicly
admitted that unarmed Drones are used to patrol the Mexican and Canadian
borders, along with the Caribbean Sea, and for law enforcement surveillance
operations.
The
result has been that illegal
border crossings have plunged, and the drop has not been a one shot deal. The
plunge has been steady for the past few years. The drop combined with the surge
in deportations which are at an all-time high add up to an historic low in net
illegal immigration into the country. The unstated downside is that with the
hyper aggressiveness of border patrol and the immigration crackdown there has
been a sharp rise in deaths since 2010 from the desperate efforts of
undocumented immigrants to skirt the patrols, and the use of lethal force by
patrol agents under dubious circumstances.
The
irony is that there was a brief moment a decade ago that the GOP seemed to get
it right on immigration reform. Then President George W. Bush was widely and
unfairly blamed at the time for making a mess of the immigration reform fight in
Congress by not pushing hard enough for passage of the immigration bill debated
in 2007. Immigrant rights groups lambasted Republican senators for dumping
crippling demands for tight amnesty, citizenship and, of course, the border
security provisions on the bill. Leading Republican presidential contenders that
year didn't help matters by flatly opposing the bill as much too soft on amnesty
and border enforcement.
This
did much to kill whatever flickering hope there was for the bill's passage. This
undid the inroads that Bush made in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections
when he scored gains with Latino voters. A big part of that was due to the
perception (and reality) that Bush would push hard for immigration reform.
Immigration then was not just about fixing America's alleged broken borders but
a crass, naked political grab for Latino votes. Even so, the party still
couldn't shake its ingrained, nativist xenophobia on what American citizenship
should be about. That didn't include any relent on its opposition to a pathway
to citizenship for the undocumented. Two crushing presidential defeats, and the
unrelenting hostility of Latino voters, has only slightly changed the party's
thinking on immigration reform as can be seen from its pile on of amendment
after amendment to the current bill with the centerpiece being border security
as the non-negotiable condition for the bill's passage.
Arizona
Senator John McCain in a candid moment without saying as much admitted that the
GOP's canard of hopelessly porous borders was a sham. He not only said that the
borders were more secure but also gave figures on the colossal number of illegal
immigrant apprehensions during the past near decade to give lie to the insecure
border myth.
The
question now is how far the GOP will push the border myth to get its way on
immigration reform. If the history of the immigration reform bill battles is any
guide, all the way.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political
analyst. His new ebook is America on
Trial: The Slaying of Trayvon Martin ( Amazon ). He is an associate editor of New
America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban
Radio Network. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM 1460 AM
Radio Los Angeles and KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica
Network.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
