The Problem is Deportation

Republicans like to show opinion polls in which most Americans oppose the use of executive action by President Obama to avoid deportation of undocumented parents of U.S. citizens. What they don’t say is that the polls also show that most of those interviewed favor suspending those deportations.

They support the content and oppose the process. This is a big deference that will bring serious headaches to the Republican leadership as long as it keeps ignoring it.

As we have said before in this page, the case for eliminating executive action using the constitutional argument that the Executive branch committed abuse of power is not sincere. The real intention is to deport as many people as possible. To do so, the language included in the Homeland Security (DHS) budget for the rest of the year removes protection for the DREAMers and the aforementioned parents, as well as reestablishing the Secure Communities program in its worst way, and establishing the confinement of people in the process of deportation, among others.

This measure is so extreme that there is no way that any Democratic senators could endorse it, so it has no chance of surviving since it cannot obtain the 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster.

Some in the GOP ranks think that the best way would be to again approve temporarily funding for the DHS, and resume the war against the presidential executive action later. That would be a waste of time because the problem is not in the moment but in the inacceptable content of a measure that goes against the wishes of the American people, as expressed many times. This is why the Democrats will not budge.

Ideally, the punitive language on immigration should be left out of the DHS budget, so it gets approved as soon as possible. This requires a sense of maturity and pragmatism for the part of the House Republican leadership that should start with listening to other voices beyond their own. The sound of that bubble is only isolating them from the majority of America