Monday, August 02, 2010

Ezra gets played

In another episode of "Who could've foreseen," Senator Huckleberry, who had previously said comprehensive immigration reform was too toxic to bring to the floor or the Senate earlier this year, announces he plans to bring an even more toxic bill to the Senate floor.

In April, I defended Lindsey Graham when he threatened to abandon climate change if Harry Reid moved on immigration first. Graham's tactic seemed extreme, but I understood his position. As one of the GOP's most prominent supporters of immigration reform, he would be unwittingly conscripted into a strategy that meant to split Republicans from Latinos and wouldn't end in a bill. In fact, Graham made a convincing case to me in a subsequent interview that engaging immigration this year would make a comprehensive bill less likely. "If you bring up immigration in this climate, you'll divide the country further," he said. "You'll get a huge vote for border security and interior enforcement, but when it comes to pathway to citizenship, you'll break down big-time."

How then to explain Graham's announcement -- on Fox News, no less -- that he's stepping into the immigration issue with a proposal that's much more divisive, and much more dangerous? “I may introduce a constitutional amendment that changes the rules if you have a child here," he said. "Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake. ... We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child's automatically not a citizen."

Labels: ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home

Weblog Commenting by HaloScan.com Site Meter