Following the move by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), many Republicans have been quick to jump on board, blaming DACA for creating the child refugee crisis at the border (despite all evidence to the contrary). But as a new editorial and political analysis reveals, the GOP’s attacks are meant to mask the Party’s true intention of blaming the President for what’s happening at the border and intimidating him from going big and bold on further executive action for undocumented immigrants settled in America.
The editorial board from leading Spanish language print outlet, La Opinión, characterizes best in a piece entitled, “A signal of cynicism”:
It is absurd to make a connection between a teenager arriving to our country today and someone who attended and graduated from a U.S. school and wants to serve his or her country in the armed forces. Likewise, it is ridiculous to think that deporting the Dreamers will stop the exodus of youths escaping the violence in their home countries and in some cases, seeking to reunite with their families.
The point is that this incongruous narrative fits perfectly with Republican plans in the House of Representatives, which without needing a crisis, voted months ago to deport the beneficiaries of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Let’s not forget that this was the only immigration-related measure that the House approved.
…Their intention is exploiting the crisis to punish the Dreamers now, since it could not be done before. It does not seem to matter that there is no relationship between DACA’s youths and the minors at the border. Today, there is a race between Republican senators and representatives to see who can be tougher with the Dreamers, because they are a bad example—despite the fact that recent arrivals will never be able to apply for deferred action.
…It is true that eliminating DACA and deporting the Dreamers will send a ‘signal,’ like Issa wants. It will show unlimited cynicism that is capable of punishing innocent youths who can make positive contributions to society, all to take advantage of the suffering of thousands of Latino children in order to harass the White House.
And as Greg Sargent of the Washington Post’s Plumline adds, Republicans’ DACA attacks are merely a derisive attempt to hamper the President’s ability to big and bold on executive action. He writes:
I strongly suspect much GOP rhetoric over the crisis is designed to achieve maximum constraint on Obama’s sense of what’s politically possible on unilaterally easing deportations. Case in point: Ted Cruz’s declaration that any GOP response to the crisis must defund Obama’s deferred-deportation program. Cruz has a history of revealing underlying political calculations with unvarnished clarity. He justified the government shutdown to stop Obamacare by arguing that once the law kicked in, people would like it and it would never be repealed.
…Beyond Cruz, the rhetoric from Republicans who disagree with him over including anti-DREAMer language in their immediate border response also seems designed to constrain future Obama action. Republicans like John Boehner and Paul Ryan know their failure to act on immigration reform could be disastrous for the GOP, and they may agree with Cruz about the possible implications of Obama stepping into the void.
And so, their rhetoric, too, is all about linking Obama permissiveness on immigration policy with disorder and lawlessness along the border in the public mind. Like Cruz, they argue generally that deferred deportations for DREAMers is to blame for the current crisis. The broad case they are making is completely strained. It’s designed to use searing border visuals to hamstring future Obama action on interior deportation policy.
