The Patriot Post® · Fiddling While the Border Burns

Over the last week or two, we in our humble shop have alerted you to the upcoming “broad” and “generous” executive order permitting amnesty, the rampant increase in grants of “asylum” to illegal aliens, Democrat delusions about a secure southern border, and even larger delusions about the urgency of addressing the problem – it’s about the children, you see. While thousands of unaccompanied minors stream across our southern border, Barack Obama and Democrats use the situation as a political football. And rather than address the problem with tried and true solutions like better barriers, better security and pressuring the nations providing all these border crossers to cease and desist, they’re doubling down on their misguided ideas.

White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri chastised Republicans for “using the Rio Grande as a reason not to do immigration reform,” and added, “Our belief is now, more than ever, the American people see immigration as an urgent issue and want the administration to act.” In the latter respect Palmieri is correct, but the Obama idea of action is to just let all of them in, and Americans prefer a secure border as well as returning these people to their homelands. It’s likely Obama will write an Executive Order later this summer expanding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) order he wrote two years ago, which was the backdoor method by which he put the defeated DREAM Act into place.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), though, is fighting back. While his proposed bill won’t address those already allowed to stay under the current DACA order, it would prohibit the expansion of DACA beyond its currently prescribed limits. “We want to stop any more people from getting deferred action under DACA and we want to stop the president from being able to expand it as we have heard he wants to do,” said Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier.

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), meanwhile, will introduce a bill to amend the 2008 anti-trafficking law being abused to allow this surge of illegal minors. “We need a policy that actually deters illegal immigration,” Vitter said. “I’ve said that if we want to send a message to others thinking about coming here illegally, let’s deport these people by the planeload.”

Appealing to raw “for the children” emotion, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) railed, “Before Republicans help our Border Patrol agents and all the personnel that’s [sic] trying to do something to handle this humanitarian crisis, they want President Obama to deport the DREAMers who are … legitimately here. These are children. But instead of considering a thoughtful, compassionate solution to a real-life crisis on our border, radical Republicans are trying to hold these kids ransom.” Illegal aliens are “legitimately here”? Who knew?

Middle ground may be electoral quicksand for GOP hopes this fall, particularly if fed-up voters view Republicans as afraid to act for fear of alienating a portion of the Hispanic vote. Ample evidence indicates that this problem was not unforeseen, so the question about who’s to blame is just as important as what to do about it.