Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart blames GOP leadership for immigration reform’s failure — and undermines Boehner’s lawsuit
It’s been painfully obvious for months now that the reason offered by House Republicans for why they couldn’t move forward on immigration reform was a crock of nonsense. When asked about the possibility of reforming the immigration system, Speaker John Boehner and the rest of the leadership would mournfully shake their heads and say they’d love to get something done on, but they just couldn’t trust President Obama to enforce whatever law they passed. Until that key element of trust could be restored, they said, no legislation would leave the House.
Everyone knew that was a load of crap; the reason Republicans wouldn’t move forward on immigration was that the caucus was terrified of the political blowback from conservatives, and not willing to hand the president a huge legislative victory. Those two obstacles couldn’t be overcome, and the Senate’s immigration reform bill, passed last summer with bipartisan support, slowly died.
The death of that bill has resulted, predictably, in everyone blaming the other side for the failure to get reform done. But yesterday Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, one of the GOP’s chief proponents for immigration reform, came out and blew some holes in the Republicans’ attempts to deflect blame and said plainly what needs to be said: Republicans killed immigration reform..