On Thursday, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio traded barbs over immigration policy. But it wasn’t the usual sort of immigration debate for a Republican primary.
Cruz attacked Rubio’s position, based on his Senate voting record. He argued that Rubio had not only proposed the so-called “gang of eight” immigration bill, but he had also voted against amendments that would have strengthened border security and limited immigration.
Related Story: http://vip-stage.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2575923
Rubio, instead of disingenuously trying to change his position to please anyone, instead argued Cruz’s position is closer to his own than he lets on.
“Ted is a supporter of legalizing people that are in this country illegally,” Rubio said on the campaign trail. “In fact, when the Senate bill was proposed, he proposed giving them work permits. He’s also supported a massive expansion of the green cards. He’s supported a massive expansion of the [H-1B visa] program, a 500 percent increase … If you look at it, I don’t believe our positions are dramatically different.”
Whichever candidate’s argument you want to buy, there was some truth to both. And it was constructive to see two candidates debate based on their voting records instead of chasing as hard to the Right as possible. Assuming that Rubio and Cruz rise to the top of the GOP field in the next three months, which at the moment seems likely, this discussion might finally force a lot of voters and pundits on the Right to start putting some flesh and bone on the lazy term “amnesty” which has so long been a conversation-stopper on any change to the untenable immigration status quo.
The fact is, whichever candidate conservatives end up choosing, his policy will be well short of the wholesale crackdown that a small minority continues to demand. Based on their own records, neither Cruz nor Rubio supports the logistically impossible and cost-prohibitive policy of deporting more than 10 million people. So what positions exactly will be “in bounds” as Republicans go forward?
To advocate for the dreaded “A-word” — amnesty — is to microaggress a certain kind of conservative. The word has been deployed successfully and repeatedly to create fear and crush any hope of changing the current status quo. And as others have argued previously (including Rubio), the current situation amounts to a de facto amnesty, because very few are punished under the current laws, and each time reform is blocked stronger enforcement of immigration laws is sacrificed for the sake of keeping the unenforceable laws exactly as they are now.
What qualifies as “amnesty?” A grant of citizenship? Permanent permission to work in the U.S.? Temporary permission? A special procedure for dealing with illegal immigrants currently in the U.S. that does anything besides deport them? A continued chance for permanent residency through existing processes, which amounts to forgiveness of the earlier illegal act of entering the U.S.? An expansion of legal immigration so as to obviate the enormous demand for illegal immigration? A policy of prioritizing certain deportations (of felons, for example) over others?
Literally every Republican candidate, including Donald Trump, supports at least one of the above. (And just three years ago, Trump suggested Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election because he was too hardline on immigration.)
What Rubio’s comments highlight is that every realistic immigration policy could in some way be described as an “amnesty.” All of the candidates are imperfect for that sliver of the GOP base that has not accepted that universal deportation is never going to happen.
But if most or all of the voters can acknowledge that none of the candidates is perfect in opposing his own definition of amnesty, then perhaps the immigration debate doesn’t have to become the tail that wags the conservative dog.
