Republicans are once again cutting off their nose to spite their face on immigration. Fully 113 congressional GOPers signed on to a
friend-of-the-court brief written in support of the Republican-led legal challenge filed by 26 states against President Obama's immigration actions.
Mike Lillis reports:
The Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (Va.), are siding squarely with the states, arguing Obama's executive action "changes the law and sets a new policy, exceeding the executive’s constitutional authority and disrupting the delicate balance of powers."
"Congress has created a comprehensive immigration scheme — which expresses its desired policy as to classes of immigrants — but the class identified by the [Homeland Security Department] directive for categorical relief is unsupported by this scheme," the lawmakers wrote in an amicus brief filed with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
Unsupported by the Republican scheme is more like it. Plenty of legal scholars and politicians
have weighed in to support the president's executive authority on the immigration programs, referred to more commonly by their acronyms DACA and DAPA.
But hey, more power to the GOP. In the best of all worlds, they will lose this legal battle while simultaneously falling on their ideological sword for the 2016 elections—cuz they got no chance of winning the White House without at least some support from Latino voters. Certain GOP presidential candidates are cluing into this reality, but they may want to let Republicans on the Hill in on their little secret.
The brief was endorsed by 113 Republicans, including Sens. John Cornyn (Texas), the majority whip, and Ted Cruz (Texas), a 2016 presidential hopeful. In the House, the supporters include Reps. Trey Gowdy (S.C.); Tom Price (Ga.); Michael McCaul (Texas), head of the Homeland Security Committee; and Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the former head of the Judiciary panel.
And Sen. Marco Rubio—let's not forget the GOP's great big hope with Latino voters.