Last updated on March 23rd, 2013 at 12:19 am
In less than a week Sen. Rand Paul has gone from the filibuster hero/CPAC straw poll winner to total zero with the right for vaguely, kind of supporting some form of immigration reform.
In his speech, Paul said,
Not to stop most immigrants from coming-we welcome them and in fact should seek to increase legal immigration.
The Republican Party must embrace more legal immigration.Unfortunately, like many of the major debates in Washington, immigration has become a stalemate-where both sides are imprisoned by their own rhetoric or attachment to sacred cows that prevent the possibility of a balanced solution.
Immigration Reform will not occur until Conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution. I am here today to begin that conversation.
Let’s start that conversation by acknowledging we aren’t going to deport 12 million illegal immigrants.
If you wish to work, if you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you.
That was all it took to turn the right against him.
Drudge tweeted:
The director of the right wing Center for Immigration Studies tweeted:
A wave was starting to build against Paul, so Red State’s Erick Erickson tried to stop it with a dopey bit of spin. Erickson laughably wrote that since Sen. Paul doesn’t use the word citizenship in his speech, he isn’t calling for citizenship, “No where in his speech does he use the word ‘citizenship.’ In fact, the word citizen is only used once, in reference to Rand Paul himself saying, ‘As a teenager, I was not always the model citizen that I am today.'”
After years of being fed the line that any immigration reform is amnesty, the Republican rank and file aren’t buying what Rand is trying to sell as non-citizenship.
Over at Weazel Zippers, the commenters did not react well.
“Those who can not remember the past can make very wrong assumptions. You can get most of the 11 million illegals out of our country.
President Eisenhower got hundreds of thousands of illegals to self deport in the 50’s. Google “Operation Wetback.” Basically Immigration laws began to be vigorously enforced, and self deportations began.
It is flat out wrong to assume that we can’t get get most of these illegals to leave one way or another. ( Interestingly one of the foes of immigration enforcement in the 50’s was Lyndon Johnson who created our modern welfare mess to vote buy.)
I am very disappointed in Rand Paul. I agree with what Logan51498 wrote, “Just another chip off the old block.Sane on some things,insane on others.”
…
“the fact that they get to stay here, keep their property, keep their entitlements might as well be amnesty. Nothing in what Rand proposes is new. It’s a plan that also calls for ‘trust me the border is secure and we really mean it’.”
…
“LMAO, the old back away and restate the position.
Nope, not gonna work with us clingers.You believe in open borders like your old man. Begone Rand.”
…
“Say Good-Bye Rand…Another RINO bites the dust for me !!! It is time for the TEA Party to go it alone and create a Third Party !! It’s time to round up the ILLEGALS AND SHIP ‘EM BACK. But sadly that will never happen !”
…
“Well, back to the drawing board….”
Rand Paul announced an immigration plan that was nothing more than a return of George W. Bush’s failed 2006 plan. Sen. Paul may not have used to the word citizenship, but more legalized immigration would create more citizens.
The flavor of the month fickleness that the Republican rank and file demonstrated all through the 2012 GOP primary is alive and well today. Sen. Paul went from being on top of the right wing world to being deemed a RINO in less than a week.
This is proof that the RNC can talk about minority outreach all they want, but as long as the people who actually vote Republican remain anti-minority/anti-immigrant they’re doomed.
The paranoid culture of distrust that Republicans have created within their own party has turned on them, and last week’s filibuster hero has become this week’s “Washington insider” villain.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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