Can Steve Israel's Beloved Blue Dogs Derail Immigration Reform By Siding With The GOP Again?

John Barrow-- anti-immigrant Blue Dog (GA)

Politically, the battle over immigration reform in pretty black and white, right? The Democrats want to reform the system. The Republicans don't. If only it could break down that neatly! The genesis of the immigration problem is tied up in wealthy corporate interests-- primarily backers of the GOP-- who want cheap labor and lots of immigration to drive the cost of labor down and dilute the power of unions. But the other half of the Republican coalition is made of of racists, xenophobes and bigots filled with fear and hatred for immigrants. That's one ugly coalition. The Democratic Party's dependence on labor unions has traditionally led it away from embracing immigration, while progressive politics have compelled it to back humanitarian solutions for immigrants already in the country.

In other words, many powerful Republicans want immigrants coming in but then want to treat them like crap, the absolute minimal demand of the other half of their political coalition. Many Democrats would rather keep them out but insist the ones that establish themselves here be treated like everyone else. That's more or less the problem in a nutshell. More or less.

The Democratic Party is making an all-out effort to normalize the situation for the 10 to 13 million immigrants, primarily Hispanics but also Asians, in the U.S. without formal papers. The Republican Hatred and Bigotry wing are threatening an internal civil war against any mainstream Republicans who support that position. But the Democrats have a mini-civil war of their own brewing. Wednesday the Wall Street Journal highlighted the position of Blue Dogs and other ConservaDems in the House. Democrats stuck together-- 100% of them-- to pass immigration reform in the Senate. A few mainstream Republicans voted with them to shut down the filibuster by deranged racists like Jeff Session (R-AL), Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT). Most House Democrats aren't equally as united behind reform-- but "most" is not "all" and the Blue Dogs are threatening to derail the whole strategy by backing the GOP racists and xenophobes.

"I'm opposed to granting amnesty," said Rep. Nick Rahall, a Democrat from West Virginia, whose grandparents legally emigrated to the U.S. from Lebanon. Creating a separate way this group can gain citizenship "would siphon scarce resources away from our already-overwhelmed immigration system and would be unfair to those other immigrants, past and present, who have dutifully waited for their turn to legally enter our country," he said.

Some House Democrats fret that any new immigration laws could repeat what they consider the mistakes of a 1986 law that legalized many illegal immigrants and included measures to stop illegal crossings.

"I want to be certain that it's not 1986 all over again," said Rep. Daniel Lipinski, a Democrat from Illinois, who said he's concerned some lawmakers might be willing in future negotiations to roll back the provisions to beef up border security, which were added to the Senate bill in a bid to win GOP support. "I have concerns about if the federal government will be serious about enforcing immigration law in the future," he said.

The exact number of resistant or fence-sitting House Democrats on immigration is hard to determine. Like many Republicans, some centrist Democrats are reluctant to stake out a firm position before the House strategy is set. House leaders have yet to unveil a bill tackling the issue of legalization, though senior GOP lawmakers are expected to introduce legislation this fall that could include granting citizenship to at least a portion of the population.

"I'm going to wait and see what they come up with and then I'll decide,' said Rep. Collin Peterson (D., Minn.), who said Congress needs to come up with a plan to "regularize" immigrants in some fashion. "We're not going to deport them."

One of the chairs of what's left of the Blue Dog Caucus, political coward John Barrow from Georgia, speaks Republicanese when it comes to immigration reform (and just about everything else). Although Steve Israelis likely to contribute at least $2 million this year to Barrow's difficult reelection campaign, Barrow doesn't think twice about betraying Democrats on crucial House votes. His ProgressivePunch score this year (21.15) is the lowest of any House Democrat-- and more conservative than a dozen Republicans. Of the whole Georgia delegation, his score is closest to John Bircher Paul Brown (19.61). Right-wing odd balls like Mark Sanford (R-SC), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm (R-Mafia), and Morgan Griffith (R-VA), for example, are all voting more often with Nancy Pelosi than Barrow is. And he's glad to let his general election constituents know about it. As for immigration, Barrow doesn't even want to discuss a pathway to citizenship at this point. "Any such discussion shouldn't begin until employer-verification programs and border security have been strengthened, Mr. Barrow said. 'Like a preacher friend of mine once said, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing,' he said."

Consider that the next time the DCCC send you an e-mail begging you for money to save immigration reform. Almost all the money they collect-- that doesn't wind up in their cronies pockets-- goes to reelect right-wing Blue Dogs and New Dems like Barrow, Almost nothing goes to electing progressives. If you'd rather your contributions go towards electing progressives, cut out the middleman and give directly to progressive candidates themselves on ActBlue pages like this one. Or do you want more of this:

Meanwhile, over in Republicanville, the hate machine the GOP has built up to spew racism, bigotry, fascism, etc is doing the only thing it knows how to do: spewing. In the Milwaukee 'burbs Paul Ryan represents, though, the hate machine is aimed at... Paul Ryan. It's been hard to watch TV in the district this week without seeing this distorted right-wing ad. Gettin' some of their own medicine:



Does Paul Ryan ever deserve being hoist on his own petard!