The Republican Civil War Worsens Over Immigration Reform

Remember when Marco Rubio was going to help humanize the Republican Party by championing comprehensive immigration reform? That brief flirtation with fairness and putting the national interest first over backward partisan ideology, knocked him out of the Tea Party presidential sweepstakes. He's been backpedaling ever since. And this week, he called the already inadequate plan the House GOP leadership cobbled together, something he could get behind.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Wednesday said he is open to an immigration reform bill that does not include a path to citizenship for the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants.

Rubio, an architect of a Senate bill that provided a pathway to citizenship, was commenting on expected House GOP principles for immigration reform. The House GOP is expected to provide a pathway for legal status, but not citizenship.

One of his teabagger rivals, Texas sociopath Ted Cruz, flat out calls the Boehner plan "amnesty." And that term is the kiss of death among the Fox-washed xenophobes and racists that dominate the GOP today. Although House Republicans are in a state of hysteria screaming from the rafters that their plan is not amnesty, Cruz threw red meat to the racists by declaring, “I think it would be a mistake if House Republicans were to support amnesty for those here illegally… In my view we need to secure the borders, we need to stop illegal immigration."

Notorious racist and GOP policy maker Rush Limbaugh has been even more strident and incendiary than Cruz. He accused Boehner and his House leadership team of taking the Republican Party down the road to suicide. He accused Boehner and Cantor of being “hellbent on ramrodding through this amnesty plan.”

“We ought not be granting citizenship to people who don’t love the country,” he said. “We ought not be granting citizenship to people who don’t understand the history of this country. … But we do, in the interest of fairness and multiculturalism and being nonjudgmental and all this. But the real reason we do is because the people granting citizenship to people like this share that opinion this is no place special. And that’s what’s so damn frustrating and inconceivable about the Republican Party wanting to open the country up to this kind of immigration. It just doesn’t make any sense. It’s the end of the Republican Party. It’s the end of the country as we know it.”

At the Republican House leadership’s annual policy retreat this week, the move to focus on immigration is just one more thing that shows the Republican Party is “acting scared to death” of President Barack Obama, Limbaugh said.

“We’ve shifted at our retreat-- which is a good name for what’s happening here, retreat-- to amnesty. And advancing amnesty doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

And the most frustrating thing, Limbaugh added, is that “these guys on our side are acting like they believe Obama’s approval numbers are still in the eighties… They’re acting scared to death. Do they not know that majorities of Americans oppose practically everything Obama has done and wants to do now?”

For Republicans, taking the focus of Obamacare and transferring it to amnesty gives the impression “they think Obama is still loved and adored by everybody and they’ve gotta tiptoe around any opposition,” Limbaugh said.

“Why are the Republicans willing to commit suicide? Because that’s what it is,” he said.

This argument is death for California Republicans. Take the Central Valley districts represented by David Valadao (CA-21- Kings County plus portions of Fresno and Kern counties) and Jeff Denham (CA-10- Stanislaus County and part of San Joaquin County). Both incumbents are in trouble in November and both have pissed off Republican hardliners by vocally backing what Ted Cruz and Rush Limbaugh call "amnesty." But look at the demographic predicament each finds himself in. 65.8% of CA-21 voters are Latinos and 77% of the district supports comprehensive immigration reform. Of the newly eligible voters since 2012, 84% are Latinos and Asians. Valadao signed on as a co-sponsor of H.R.15, which goes a lot further than the bill Boehner and Cantor are pushing. In CA-10, 34.9% of the voters are Latinos and 61% of the newly eligible voters are Latinos and Asians. 72% of the district backs comprehensive immigration reform. Like Valadao, Denham is co-sponsoring H.R. 15.

Darrell Issa represents the area where Orange County and San Diego County meet, CA-4, which has a PVI of R+4 but which was taken by President Obama in 2008. 22.2% of the voters are Latino but, more ominous for Issa, 49.6% of newly eligible voters are Latinos and Asians. A whopping 74% of the district's voters back comprehensive immigration reform. Issa raised the white flag-- at least partially-- and now claims he backs citizenship. He angered the far right by saying that "all of us Republicans know that we don’t want a class of residents that will never be offered an opportunity for citizenship. We’re the party of Lincoln, and the party of Lincoln would not accept people living in our country and not being citizens, or not being given the opportunity to become citizens."

But now take a look at Issa's 5 senior Republican colleagues who don't seem to know what he claims "all of us Republicans know:" Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, Committee chairs, Buck McKeon and Ed Royce, and fellow bigots Gary Miller and Ken Calvert. None of them have signed onto H.R. 15 and none backs a pathway to citizenship for immigrants. Look at these charts below on these 5 galoots. A competent DCCC would be effectuating a two-cycle strategy to remove all of them from office. With the exception of Gary Miller-- who is only in office because the DCCC backed an inadequate Democratic candidate last cycle in this D+5 district-- Steve Israel has taken all these districts off the board and the DCCC is giving them all free passes to reelection. McKeon couldn't face running again and already announced his retirement. His likely opponent, Steve Knight, is the single most right-wing legislator in California and the most anti-Latino state senator in the state. Typically, the DCCC have still not backed grassroots progressive Democrat Lee Rogers.