Speaker Boehner today was speaking to business leaders in San Antonio when he once again deflected blame for not passing immigration reform away from himself and his House GOP caucus.
“Here’s my problem today, the president has decided he’s not going to adhere to the law,” Boehner said according to Jordan Fabian. Before Republicans move on immigration, Obama is “going to have to do something that demonstrates some level of trustworthiness.”
Oh please, John Boehner. President Obama specifically made it a policy to deport record numbers of people so that Republicans would come to the table on immigration. He’s repeatedly cajoled House Republicans to pass a bill. He’s said he’s fine with legislation passing piecemeal or any which way, as long as it gets done.
Many House Democrats have been doing their part too. They introduced HR 15, the bipartisan House immigration reform bill, which now has 199 cosponsors. They introduced a discharge petition to go around Speaker Boehner and bring the bill to the floor. Some, including Reps. Tony Cardenas (D-CA) and Jared Polis (D-CO) have been going out of their way to try and force votes on immigration reform by attaching HR 15 to everything from the Research and Competitiveness Act to a Benghazi bill.
Legislatively, the ball has always been in the GOP’s court. Republicans now have 46 days until the time they must demonstrate progress on immigration reform — or end up cut out of the process as it moves on without them. It’s time for them to demonstrate some level of good faith. They’ll run themselves off the demographic cliff if they don’t.
