I disagree more with Sen. John McCain than I agree with him.
But he’s right to declare that the Republican Party is doomed if the House of Representatives kills immigration reform.
McCain, R-Ariz., represents a border state and has a keen knowledge of the need to reform our immigration system. He voted to approve the Senate bill that passed 68-32 in a rare show of bipartisanship earlier this year. It’s gone to the House of Reps, where Speaker John Boehner has said it will need a majority of Republican House members to support it before it even goes to a vote of the full chamber.
Frankly, I don’t really give a damn about the Republican Party’s future as it relates to immigration reform. I do care that we fix the system that has put 11 million or so U.S. residents in hiding. The Senate bill would give those folks a “path to citizenship”; it also strengthens border security by completing construction of a hundreds-mile-long fence and hiring of many more border patrol agents.
It contains elements that conservatives and liberals both like.
Whether it helps the Republicans’ future is of little interest to me. The GOP has taken it on the chin from Latino voters who keep voting Democratic because, frankly, Republican lawmakers keep saying strange things — such as calling for the deportation of those 11 million residents who are here illegally.
Never mind all of those who have made positive contributions to our society, or those whose children have become de facto Americans by virtue of growing up in the only country they’ve ever known as “home.”
Republicans need to listen to McCain. This GOP elder statesman knows a good bit about the compelling need to reform the immigration system.