The White House correspondents' dinner might have been two weeks ago, but
President Barack Obama continued his comedy routine yesterday in El Paso, Texas,
only this time Donald Trump wasn’t the butt of the jokes. Instead, during a
speech on immigration, the president mocked Republicans at large, the rule of
law, and any American who takes the defense of our nation
seriously.
Respectfully, Mr. President, illegal immigration and border
security are no laughing matter.
But to the president, they apparently
are, especially when it provides fodder for a purely political speech, delivered
amid a round of campaign fundraisers in the Lone Star State. After claiming that
his administration has "gone above and beyond" Republicans' calls for
immigration reform (which he hasn't), Obama launched into an all-out
assault on the GOP:
We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very
Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious
about enforcement. All the stuff they asked for, we’ve done. But even though
we've answered these concerns, I gotta say I suspect there are still going to be
some who are trying to move the goal posts on us one more time.
You know,
they said we needed to triple the Border Patrol. Or now they're going to say we
need to quadruple the Border Patrol. Or they'll want a higher fence. Maybe
they'll need a moat. Maybe they'll want alligators in the
moat."
And if that weren't enough to prove just how political
the speech was, the White House went so far as to include catcalls from the
audience
on the official transcript from the speech,
including, "We love you!," "Tear it down!," "They’re racist!," 53 mentions of
the audience's applause and nine mentions of laughter. We get it, Mr. President
-- you played to your crowd quite well.
This isn't a question of racism,
the goal posts haven’t moved, and a moat is not what’s needed. In case the
president hasn't noticed, the 1,896-mile Rio Grande, arid deserts, treacherous
mountain ranges, Border Patrol and hundreds of miles of fence haven’t been
enough. And though the president
claimed, "The fence is now basically complete," a
February 2011 GAO report shows that Border Patrol
does not have control of the
border.
Maybe, amid all the applause, the president hasn't noticed
that millions of illegal immigrants now live in the United States, and our laws
aren't being enforced. And when Arizona attempted to enforce the law since the
federal government would not,
the Obama Justice Department sued to stop
it.
Rather than offer effective solutions to the illegal immigration
problem, Obama's response was to ridicule those seeking to enforce the law and
offer amnesty for others to curry their political favor. He even dredged up the
DREAM Act,
a mini-amnesty in sheep's clothing, which fell
flat on its face in Congress. That's par for the course with this president, who
continues to place politics before policy as a matter of routine. The Heritage
Foundation's
Jena McNeil explains:
An amnesty would cost taxpayers millions, if not billions of
dollars—at a time where debt is at its ceiling and budgets are busted. It would
also reward those who broke the law and came to the U.S. illegally over those
who came to the U.S. the legal way.
Solving the problem, though,
isn't the president's goal. Cynically winning Hispanic votes is his end game.
Heritage's Israel Ortega writes:
It's obvious that political calculations are driving the President's
push for immigration reform in light of his all-time-low support among Hispanics. President Obama's
advisors remain convinced that immigration reform will guarantee their support,
despite polling that indicates that unemployment and education are issues that
keep most Hispanics up at night.
Unfortunately President Obama continues
to believe that Hispanics are single-issue voters who will reward him for his
stump speeches on immigration.
America faces a real illegal
immigration problem. It also faces an unemployment problem, a spending problem,
an entitlements problem and a national security problem.
On immigration,
the right solution is making a real commitment to border security, workplace and
immigration enforcement, a temporary worker program and visa reforms to get
employers the employees they need. On all of the above, the solution starts with
a president who is willing to lead and get down to business -- but not the
business of taking cheap shots to score points in the political arena.
