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With Arguments Against Immigration Reform Destroyed, It’s Put Up or Shut Up Time for GOP

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One-by-one, the major arguments and excuses used by opponents of immigration reform to justify their opposition are being demolished.  From the fiscal and economic arguments against immigration reform that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scoring of the Senate’s immigration bill eviscerated, to the “not enough border security” excuse, answered by the extreme border security amendment authored by Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and John Hoeven (R-ND), the past week has thrown opponents of reform on their heels.

According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice:

It’s put up or shut up time for Republicans in Congress on immigration.  One by one, their arguments are being rebutted and their excuses are being refuted.  If you can’t vote for this bill, then it’s not about border security and economic impacts, it’s about disdain for Latino immigrants who aspire to be citizens of the country they now call home.

Earlier this week the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) noted that the Senate’s immigration bill will boost economic growth and significantly decrease the federal deficit.  It found that immigrants are and will continue to be a net gain, not a drain on the economy.  In the process, it put the final nail in the coffin on the attempt by opponents to use the discredited Heritage Foundation study to scuttle reform.

Now comes the border security amendment authored by Senators Corker and Hoeven.  As the Los Angeles Times notes, it advances, “a military-style buildup along the U.S. border with Mexico, doubling the number of Border Patrol agents on the ground and tripling the number of drones overhead — a $30-billion plan designed to win the votes of as many as 15 Republican senators for the immigration reform bill.  The plan would add so many new agents to the Border Patrol — 20,000 — that if all were deployed at once, they could be stationed roughly every 250 feet along the border, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.”

First, let us be clear.  This is terrible public policy.  It is wasteful and unnecessary, and will threaten the civil rights and well-being of border communities.  Additional spending from Corker and Hoeven’s amendment is on top of existing border enforcement pillars.  We already spend unprecedented sums, devote unprecedented resources, and have made unprecedented progress at the border.  Further, the bill that emerged from the Senate Judiciary Committee provides massive additional resources toward both interior and border enforcement, adding up to the largest increase in immigration enforcement in U.S. history.

Nevertheless, it seems that this is Republicans’ high price for passing reform.  And one thing the amendment surely does, is put a stake through the argument from many Republicans that the Senate bill is weak on border security.  As Senator John McCain said of his Republican colleagues in reference to the Corker-Hoeven amendment, “If they can’t accept these provisions, then border security is not their problem.”

The Wall Street Journal editorialized yesterday about what “their problem” may actually be:

The immigration debate has turned once again to ‘securing the border,’ and Republicans are once again demanding more enforcement as the price of their support. Here’s the real story: For some Republicans, border security has become a ruse to kill reform.  The border could be defended by the 10th Mountain Division and Claymore antipersonnel mines and it wouldn’t be secure enough…The real game here is to kill a bill that would create a more pro-growth and humane immigration system for America and the millions already here or in line to come. I f the right succeeds in blowing all this up, one wonders what comes next?  Perhaps Republicans can campaign in 2014 on self-deporting the 11 million illegals who are here now.  That worked so well for Mitt Romney.