Boehner Betrays Immigration Enforcement

As if we needed a reminder that America has a unique two-party system — “the evil party and the stupid party” — Republican House Speaker Boehner has provided it yet again. He is blocking a floor vote on a bill that could create a million or more jobs — and at no cost to taxpayers.

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The Legal Workforce Act, H.R. 2885, would require all employers to use the federal E-Verify program to identify fake or stolen Social Security Numbers used by illegal workers. Participation by employers would be phased in over a two-year period. The program is largely self-enforcing because the list of participating companies is posted on the Homeland Security Department website and updated quarterly.

Over 300,000 employers already participate in this Social Security Number verification system at over 1 million worksites. The program has an error rate of less than 1 percent. Currently, the E-Verify program is required for most companies doing business with the federal government, and it is required of all employers in a half dozen states. {snip}

After extensive public hearings, last September the Legal Workforce Act was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee and then sent to the House Ways and Means Committee. It has languished there ever since.

This important bill — which has 74 cosponsors — is being buried by Speaker Boehner and the House Republican leadership: they have ordered the Ways and Means chairman to sit on the bill indefinitely. Translated, that means do not allow the bill to be sent to the floor for a vote.

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Blocking H.R. 2885 is only the latest example of Beltway Republican hostility to the immigration-enforcement movement. When John McCain and his open-borders allies could not get their amnesty bills passed in 2006 and 2007, they resolved to block any meaningful legislation aimed at border security or interior enforcement. They were not able to block the Secure Fence Act of December, 2006, but they did succeed in amending and sabotaging it in the Senate Appropriations Committee in 2007. So, the double fence it authorized for 700 miles of the southwest border was never built.

The pattern is well-established, but the political motivation behind that pattern is paradoxical. These jokers actually think they are doing the Republican Party a favor by suppressing immigration-enforcement legislation. They worry the Republican Party will “lose the Hispanic vote” if such legislation is enacted.

Well, these political gurus have overlooked one little historical fact. The Republican Party has never HAD the Hispanic vote, so how can they lose it? Even their hero, President George W. Bush, could not get more than 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004 after proclaiming his support for amnesty legislation. Republican congressional candidates have never earned more than 35 percent of the Hispanic vote nationally.

These supposedly brilliant Beltway strategists and pundits have strangely overlooked what happened in 2010: Every single Republican elected to an open seat in either the House or Senate in that magnificent landslide ran on a pro-enforcement platform!

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In reality, Republicans have nothing to lose and much to gain by advancing a pro-enforcement agenda with features like mandatory E-Verify for employers, an end to automatic citizenship for children born to illegal aliens and tourists, and genuine border security. First, that agenda is good for the country, and then it’s smart politics as well. Is that formula too complicated for the Beltway Republicans like Speaker John Boehner?

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