Today’s MSNBC segment with Chris Hayes (and guest Jose Diaz-Balart) is a must-watch, with Hayes repeatedly calling out Speaker Boehner and pointing out that there are zero excuses left to not pass immigration reform.
Hayes pointed out that the “countours of the immigration reform fight are strikingly similar to the contours of the shutdown fight that the President just won decisively.” Speaker Boehner lifted the Hastert Rule in order to allow a House vote on the shutdown, but he continues to hide behind the excuse on immigration.
But as Chris Hayes said, “Boehner has now broken the Hastert rule so many times, he cannot hide behind that concept anymore…There is no longer any credible excuse for Boehner not to bring [an immigration] bill up for a vote. It is John Boehner who is currently shutting out 11 million people from full citizenship.”
When Jose Diaz-Balart, anchorman for Telemundo and the brother of Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) came on, he hammered the GOP for ignoring the political and economic benefits of economic reform. It’s not just about the 11 million immigrants already here, he said, “it’s about the 50.5 million Latino voters. It’s about the 50,000 US-born Latinos turning 18 every year. The Latino vote is not going away. It’s getting bigger.”
And you can bet that Latinos care about immigration reform as an issue, he said. “‘There but for the grace of God go I,’ is something that a lot of Latinos with documents think [about immigrants]…our community cares about it, it’s our cousins, friends, mothers, and fathers.”
Watch the full segment below:
