Raul Labrador (R., Idaho): Passing A Bad Immigration Bill Could Mean The ‘Death of the Republican Party’

Raul Labrador (R., Idaho): Passing A Bad Immigration Bill Could Mean The ‘Death of the Republican Party’

Raul Labrador (R., Idaho) is generally considered to be a little squishy on illegal immigration, but you do at least have to give him credit for treating immigration reform as the political plutonium that it is instead of a glibly sticking the GOP’s neck in a noose and jumping off a stool without a second thought like John McCain and Marco Rubio.

Raul Labrador

“If we don’t do it right politically, it’s going to be the death of the Republican party,” Labrador said in an interview with Meet the Press.

“If we do it right, I think it’s going to be good for us,” he continued, “but if we don’t do it right, what’s going to happen is that we’re going to lose our base because we’re still going to have a large number of illegal immigrants coming into the United States, and the Hispanic community is not going to listen to us because they’re going to always listen to at this point to the people that are offering more, that are offering a faster pathway to citizenship, all those things. so I think we lose on both grounds if we don’t do it right.”

…“If you give to this administration the authority to decide when they’re going to enforce the law, how they’re going to enforce the law, and you tell them that it’s okay if they decide if there’s going to be . . . 20,000 border patrol agents or they get to determine when the border is secure, I can tell you that [Department of Homeland Security secretary] Janet Napolitano has already said that the border is secure.”

“So what’s going to happen is that we’re going to give legalization to 11 million people,” he added, “and Janet Napolitano’s going to come to Congress and tell us that the border is already secure and nothing else needs to happen.”

The Senate bill would be the worst of all worlds politically: It would infuriate the GOP’s base, it wouldn’t help the party with Hispanics, it wouldn’t stop illegal immigration and it would add millions of new Democratic voters.

You can never quite count the GOP out when it comes to making dumb mistakes, but there does seem to be a measure of sanity and seriousness in the way that House Republicans are approaching this issue compared to their more RINOesque brethren in the Senate.

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