The cynical, political play on immigration

Feb. 9—Not sure if you have noticed or have heard, but there's been a bug going around the Republican congressional caucus — in both the House and the Senate. Seems like a good many of them have caught something bad and just can't shake it.

You could start with the private lives of some of the more — how should we say — curious public people, folks like Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado who was escorted out of a Denver movie theater for "explicitly groping" her boyfriend. A show at the show, so to speak. And we could also talk about Representative Matt Gaetz, who is being investigated by the GOP-controlled House for reportedly having sex with an underage girl — she was 17 at the time. There is also the pathological liar, George Santos of New York, whose behavior was so outlandish — essentially padding his own bank account at the expense of campaign donors — that he was expelled from the House on a bipartisan 311-114 vote. Last May, Santos was indicted on 13 criminal charges including wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making materially false statements to the House of Representatives.

So, yes, kind of like a bad case of the flu making the rounds.

The crazy contagion doesn't end with those three, however. House Republicans, just as soon as they captured the House majority in the off-year elections back in November 2022, promised that they would impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. They got all worked up, holding committee meetings and taking testimony, making progress for the American people, they told us. Didn't matter that they did not have a single fact to support a charge of high crimes and misdemeanors, which is the standard for impeaching federal officials like, you know, Donald Trump. Twice. But the House Republicans — give them credit for effort — had been working on those articles of impeachment, stalling work on most all other matters so that they could play their immigration card in the run-up to the 2024 general election. They argued that Mayorkas was responsible for what they characterized as a complete failure in border policy, and that he should be impeached for gross incompetence in his role. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., just hours before the vote, said he was confident the bill would pass.

Egg meet face.

The impeachment vote failed by a paper-thin margin when four Republicans said, no, we do not have the goods and, besides, we cannot go around impeaching a Cabinet official for merely executing the president's policies.

Biden, they said, was the guy to blame for conditions at the border.

And, yes, the Republicans, including the likes of our own junior senator from West Virginia, Shelley Moore Capito, had been pounding on that very theme ever since Biden was sworn into the nation's highest office.

Here, from a press release from her office back in April 2021, a grand total of two months after Biden took office: "U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito returned from a recent visit to the United States-Mexico border, and said President Joe Biden must change policy and do something to stop the surge of immigrants crossing that border."

And, "I think the president has to come up with a solution," Capito said in the release. "Congress certainly needs to act on a more comprehensive immigration form ... ."

Yes, well, our junior senator ended up voting against exactly that this week — a comprehensive immigration reform bill that Republicans, like Capito, had been demanding. Why? Former President Trump lobbied against it, saying out loud that it would be a big policy win for Biden in an election year. Republican senators wilted in the heat.

Once again, the motivating forces on Capitol Hill were not about the American people, not about finding consensus with those across the political aisle, certainly not about stemming the flow of immigrants from coming into the country. It wasn't even about building a wall — because that, in part, was in the deal. No, this was all about a fear of Trump — and doing what is best for him. Not us. This was about the poisonous political culture that has taken a hold in D.C. and around the country.

This viral sickness continues to spread and weaken the foundations of political leadership, diminishing courage and what it means to serve Americans.

The irony of it all is that the Republicans have been exposed, and they may not be able to use immigration as a campaign issue — because they dropped the ball as directed by their dear leader.

That bug bites.

J. Damon Cain is editor of The Register-Herald. Email him at dcain@register-herald.com.