Trump’s cynical sabotage of immigration reform

A “border deal that actually reduced the flow of illegal immigration, that would be good for [President Biden] politically.”

That is Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), giving away the GOP’s cynical game on fixing the border. Cramer said this without a hint of shame in explaining his opposition to immigration reform.

In Cramer’s mind, taking positive action on immigration hurts the most likely Republican candidate set to run against Biden, Donald Trump. 

To repeat, it seems congressional Republicans are holding back support for an immigration bill that solves a painful human crisis at the border simply because Trump doesn’t want to give Biden a political victory in an election year.

Cramer is one of the many Republicans who go on rightwing radio, internet and television shows to rail about the need to fix the border. And their attacks have had an impact. A CBS/You Gov poll taken this month found that 70 percent of Americans disapprove of Joe Biden’s handling of the immigration issue.

The GOP alarm over Biden’s handling of the border resulted in immigration rising to be the number one issue for Republican voters in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.

Fox News polling showed 41 percent of Republican voters in both states ranked “immigration” as their “most important issue.”

A month before the voting started, a national poll by Fox had the economy ranked as the number one concern for Republicans. 

But now with the stock market hitting record highs and inflation slowing, the Trump-led GOP is putting all its bets on blaming Biden for problems at the border.

Note that while 35 percent of Republicans said immigration is an important concern, in a December Fox poll, only 5 percent of Democrats and 14 percent of independent voters agreed.

Trump’s focus on Biden’s handling of the border is eye-catching since Trump failed to deal with the issue when he was president.

He famously promised to build a wall, and he failed. He famously promised to have Mexico pay for the wall, and he failed. He famously tried to broker immigration reform through Congress, and he failed.

But now Trump and Republicans are making a cynical bet that their years of failure will be forgotten, and that attacks on Biden’s handling of immigration will pave their path back to power in this year’s election.

Congressional Republicans, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), have insisted that any measure to fund U.S. allies at war — Israel and Ukraine — be part of a larger deal that includes increased border security. But Johnson and the MAGA hardliners are turning their backs on a $14 billion package backed by Biden to improve the immigration system and provide relief to local governments bearing the brunt of the migrant crisis. 

Johnson’s cynical act is a reminder that, in 2013, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)brokered a bipartisan immigration deal with enhanced border security. But Rubio ran away from his own bill out of fear, because right-wing radio hosts dismissed the bill as “amnesty for illegal immigrants.” That led Rubio to conclude it would hurt his ambition to run for president.

Once again, Republicans are taking a hardline stance to sabotage any plan to solve the border security problem, even as they are complaining about it. They even make racially provocative claims that Democrats favor open borders to bring in racial minorities who are likely to vote for Democrats.

Trump has even suggested that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the country.”

The reality of immigrants fleeing political oppression, poverty and violence under current U.S. asylum laws is conveniently ignored by Trump. He started his 2016 presidential campaign by describing most of the people crossing the border as rapists and criminals.

Polls have consistently shown over the years that voters favor orderly, legal immigration.

They do not want to see families separated at the border. They do not want to see desperate people exploited for cheap labor by corporations and street gangs.

Trump finds no political advantage in celebrating America as a nation of immigrants with an immigration system that works. He sees that as a political negative.

Even two Republican appointees to the Supreme Court — Justices John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett — sided with the three liberal justices on the court last week by ordering the state of Texas to take down the inhumane razor wire it had placed at the border, which can maim and kill desperate people crossing the border into America for a better life.

Historians now agree that Richard Nixon and his top foreign policy aide Henry Kissinger deliberately took steps to sabotage Vietnam peace talks in 1968, in order to make Nixon’s election more likely. In other words, he invited death and international turmoil, as well as violent political division at home. The pain haunts us to this day.

Last year, new allegations were also raised supporting the longstanding theory that Republicans had worked to slow the release of Iranian hostages until after the 1980 election, all in order to help defeat President Jimmy Carter.

In 2024, Trump is doing the same thing with the migrant crisis.

HuffPost reported last week: “Donald Trump on Wednesday privately pressured Senate Republicans to “kill” a bipartisan deal to secure the U.S. border because he doesn’t want President Joe Biden to chalk up a win ahead of the 2024 presidential election.”

How cynical.

Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.