Obama set the immigration trap, and the GOP walked in

from The Gray Area: Mitch McConnell today announced a plan to walk back from the Republicans original plan to stop President Obama’s executive order o immigration by combining it with the Homeland Security funding bill. That was really stupid on the part of the Republicans, as was put forward last week in the LA Times article below.

By Tamar Jacoby,

On Monday, a federal judge in Texas blocked President Obama’s latest executive actions on immigration. This is a short-term win for Republicans, who rightly believe the president lacked the authority to act unilaterally. But it does nothing to change the underlying political dynamic — Republicans have won a battle, but they’re still at risk of losing the immigration war.

The contrast between Democrats and Republicans is stark and getting starker every day. A Democratic president is fighting to shield unauthorized immigrants from deportation. If it weren’t for the court order, an additional 600,000 Dreamers who came to the U.S. illegally as children could have applied for legal status starting Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress headed into their sixth week trying to pass a measure that would pave the way for deporting not just the Dreamers, but all 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States.

It’s a contrast sure to haunt the GOP through November 2016 and beyond.

The irony, particularly bitter for Republicans, is that it’s not an accurate picture of the party. Most GOP representatives in Congress support relief for Dreamers, and many, perhaps most, support legal status for unauthorized immigrants.

But congressional Republicans are caught in a trap. They’re fighting for a policy most of them don’t believe in as a way, they think, to strike back at the president — but in the end they’re hurting themselves more than they could ever hurt Obama.

So how did Republicans get trapped? Obama set the snare, but the GOP walked in of its own free will.

Obama surely knew that the immigration executive orders he issued in November would infuriate Republicans. He could have sent the same proposal up to Capitol Hill as a bill: legal status rather than citizenship for some but not all of those here illegally. That might just have passed if it had come up for a vote last year.

But that would have taken immigration off the table as a wedge issue, leveling the playing field between Republicans and Democrats. So instead, the president acted unilaterally, knowing the GOP would see that as a brazen abuse of authority — a violation the party had to fight, no matter what the consequences.

Republicans are right: The president overreached. But being right isn’t always enough in politics — you also have to win the war of perceptions. And right now, the GOP is losing that war — big time. Americans aren’t hearing the message about the president’s abuse of authority. They’re hearing the GOP say it hates immigrants.

What can Republicans do? How do they get out of the trap?

Turn the tables on Obama. Come together as a party and pass some constructive immigration measures, then send those bills to the president and let him look like the obstacle to progress.

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