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Hecklers, SAFE Act, Attempt to Kill Birthright Citizenship: Not a Great Week for GOP Rebranding

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Whoops.  The Republican attempt to rebrand and remarket itself to minority voters continued to flail this week, in the midst of a Senate floor debate and cross-currents over competing border security amendments.

Yesterday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) held a six-hour long anti-immigrant rally/rant/”debate” during which speakers and Tea Partiers railed against “illegals,” “amnesty,” and becoming Mexico.  Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican from Florida, showed up to give remarks, briefly threw in some Spanish—and was promptly heckled.

I have a feeling Rep Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) won’t be going to any more of Steve King’s racist Tea party rallies http://t.co/sDpNgAhsjr

— Howie Klein (@downwithtyranny) June 20, 2013

Diaz-Balart, by the way, was born in the US and speaks English fluently.

Another Congressman, Rep. Randy Weber (R-AZ), gave a speech in which he called all immigrants “takers”:

Mr. President. Build up this wall. […] We need some sanity. The things that made America great are Americans like you that work and understand that it’s sacrifice. You don’t get to come over here and be takers.

As Steve Benen wrote at the Rachel Maddow blog, it’s as if Mitt Romney’s 47% video never even happened.

Moving on: let’s not forget that the House Judiciary Committee passed the SAFE Act (or as we call it, the HATE Act), by a party-line vote 20-15 this week.  The bill would instantly turn all immigrants in the US into criminals and give local law enforcement more power to arrest and charge them.  It’s the very worst anti-immigrant bill we’ve seen in recent memory—even worse than the 2005 Sensenbrenner bill that brought millions out to the streets in protest.

At least the Committee had the sense to shoot down a proposed Steve King amendment to repeal birthright citizenship before passing the bill out of committee.  Not that that diminishes the fact that the HJC just passed what Eliseo Medina called “a radical piece of legislation that runs completely counter to the ever-growing consensus” that we need smart and fair immigration reform.

(Some) Senate Republicans did do something right when they helped vote to table John Cornyn’s border-enforcement-only anti-citizenship amendment today.  The amendment would’ve been a poison pill: certain to kill the push for immigration reform altogether, because it would’ve made citizenship completely unobtainable for the 11 million immigrants already living here.

Now, the new hot thing being considered is an amendment that Senators John Hoeven (R-ND) and Bob Corker (R-TN) are proposing, which would double the entire border patrol and build 700 miles of border fencing.  More details about that still to come.