Saturday, July 19, 2014

"Rope-A-Dope" At The Border?

Recent headlines suggest that Congress will be of no help to President Obama when it comes to solving the current humanitarian crisis at our southern border.  Democrats object to his request for changes in law that would permit faster deportation of the thousands of Central American children fleeing American-made violence in their home countries.  Republicans, on the other hand, see political gold in the President's request for supplemental funding to give these children the level of due process currently required under the law, and want to use that request to extract concessions for additional enforcement.  As a consequence of this so-what-else-is-new division, John Boehner is on the record as lacking "optimism" about Congress' ability to grant the President's request.

And I suspect that no one is likely to be happier about that fact than Barack Obama.  I'll explain why.

For months, and especially since the death of legislative attempts at comprehensive immigration reform, we've been treated to a series of media accounts and opinion pieces about the President's executive power to ease the problems of the undocumented.  Some of this speculation has emerged from Obama's own lips, as well as statements made by members of his Administration.  Much of it, however, has come from the chattering classes on both sides of the ideological divide.  But almost all of it seemingly came to a halt with the first headlines, photos and videos of child refugees facing guns and threats from some of the more outspoken members of this "Christian" nation.

I suspect, however, that, in Obama's mind, the possibility of administrative action wasn't so much halted as paused.  He has known for a long time that Boehner and the Tea Partiers would rather damage their own country than do anything for an African-American President that might even look like a favor.  Likewise, he has been under tremendous pressure from his own party and from immigration advocates to slow down the record-setting pace on deportation he had been maintaining solely in a no-win effort to draw Republicans into a legislative consensus on immigration reform.

Which is why I think there is a two-fold purpose in the President's supplemental request.  First, he is effectively giving Congress one last, highly visible chance to act in a sensible way about a serious immigration-related problem, knowing that they will kick it to the curb.  And second, he will then pivot, turn this failure into election-year campaign fodder against a "do-nothing" Congress--and then announce a major program of administrative relief that will include some form of temporary protective status for the refugee children.  He will have effectively "rope-a-doped" the Republicans, and made Congressional Democrats and the people who will vote for them in November very happy.

The media perception, at this point, seems to be that Obama is the one in a tough spot.  I couldn't disagree more.  It's the Republicans who have to decide whether the militia-types facing down unarmed children with semiautomatics are going to be the face of their party this fall.  I have a feeling they're going to make the wrong decision--and that, ultimately, they will be the only ones harmed by it.

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