I posted last week that The GOP is officially the party of Steve King and of mass deportation. Call them “Deportation Republicans.”
All four of Arizona’s Tea-Publican congressman voted for the two House bills. Arizona’s Senators voted with their GOP colleagues to filibuster the Democratic bill for border emergency funding over a procedural vote. Arizona’s angry old man John McCain had his panties in a bunch over an amendment that he wanted to offer to deport refugee children from Central American faster and with fewer due process protections than they now enjoy under a 2008 law (similar to the bill passed in the House). They are “Deportation Republicans.”
The Arizona Daily Star reported that CD 2 GOP candidate Martha McSally supports Rep. Steve King’s Tea Party non-compromise border bills in the House. She also is a “Deportation Republican.” CD2 Watch: Reactions to $694 million House immigration bill:
“Yesterday, Congressman Barber failed Southern Arizonans by voting against a bill to help secure our border and provide badly needed resources to deal with the humanitarian crisis. Either he doesn’t understand how important this issue is or is more concerned with following his party’s wishes,” McSally said.
McSally notes the bill contains funding for additional resources for Customs and Border Patrol operations, funds National Guard troops on the border, increases humanitarian assistance for unaccompanied minors and adds funding for temporary immigration judges.
I guarantee you that Martha McSally, who has never demonstrated to me that she has any intellectual curiosity in learning anything about public policy, had any inkling about what was actually in these bills before this boilerplate statement was prepared for her by her RNCC handlers.
Here is the CRS Summary for the “Secure the Southwest Border Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2014.” In addition to the increased funding — which is only a fraction of the amount requested by the White House and substantially less than the Senate bill — there are provisions that McSally’s statement conveniently left out:
Secure the Southwest Border Act of 2014 – Amends the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Authorization Act of 2008 to change the procedures for screening and processing unaccompanied alien children who arrive at the border from certain countries.
Amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to include the commission of certain drug-related offenses as grounds for per se ineligibility for asylum.
Prohibits the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture (USDA) from impeding, prohibiting, or restricting certain CBP activities on federal lands.
Expresses the sense of Congress that the Secretary of Defense should not allow the placement of unauthorized aliens at military installations unless certain conditions are met.
“Send them back where they came from faster!” does not exactly sound very “humanitarian,” now does it?
McSally’s canned statement also ignored the second companion bill passed by the House. Here is the CRS Summary for the bill “To prohibit certain actions with respect to deferred action for aliens not lawfully present in the United States, and for other purposes”:
Prohibits a federal agency or instrumentality from issuing after July 30, 2014, guidance, memorandums, regulations, policies, or other similar instruments the effect of which is to:
- modify the June 15, 2012 executive memorandum concerning deferred action for childhood arrivals in any manner that would expand the number of aliens eligible for deferred action;
- newly authorize deferred action for any class of aliens not in lawful immigration status in the United States; or
- newly authorize any alien (except a parolee or a crewman permitted to land temporarily) to work in the United States who was not lawfully admitted into, and not lawfully present in, the United States.
This is the Tea-Publican objection to President Obama’s the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Tea-Publicans are saying “deport the DREAMers too!” Funny how McSally left that out of her statement.
Since Martha McSally has aligned herself with Rep. Steve King (R-IA), one of the most racist xenophobes in the Congress, it is only fair to ask questions of McSally whether she agrees with statements made by Rep. King regarding immigration:
Re: Refugee children from Central America
In an interview with Steve Malzberg on Newsmax last Monday, Rep. Steve King of Iowa warned that Central American migrants who are apprehended at the southern border can be “delivered to the address of their choice” while they await a deportation hearing, and “that might be a crack house, it might be an MS13 house, it might be a cat house.” Steve King: Migrants May Go To ‘A Crack House,’ ‘An MS13 House’ Or ‘A Cat House’.
Re: DREAMers
“For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.” ‘Cantaloupes’ Comments About Drug-‘Hauling’ DREAMers.
Rep. King blamed the child migrant crisis not on drug-war-related violence in Central America but on President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, or as he calls it, “deferred action for criminal aliens.” Steve King: God Established America’s Borders.
Re: Border Wall
“We could also electrify this wire (on the border) with the kind of current that would not kill somebody, but it would simply be a discouragement for them to be fooling around with it. We do that with livestock all the time.” He said what? Top 5 quotes from Iowa Rep. Steve King.
Re: Immigration Laws
Rep. King comparing immigration laws to picking a dog: “You put out a beacon like the Statue of Liberty and who comes here? The most vigorous from every country that has donated legal immigrants to America. The cream of the crop. We’ve always had bird dogs around our place. In our family there’s a black lab and white lab, a yellow lab, and my brother has a chocolate lab. Well, you go in and you look at a litter of pups, and you watch them. You watch how they play — they run around a little bit — and what do you want? You want a good bird dog, and you want one that’s gonna be aggressive? Pick the one that’s the friskiest, the one that’s in games the most — not the one that’s over there sleeping in the corner. You want a pet to sit on the couch, pick the one that’s sleeping in the corner. That’s — so, you get the pick of the litter, you got yourself a pretty good bird dog. We got the pick of every donor civilization on the planet because it’s hard to get here; you had to be inspired to come. We got the vigor from the planet to come to America. Whichever generation it was, and then we taught our children that same thing.” He said what? Top 5 quotes from Iowa Rep. Steve King.
And just last night at a campaign event, a DREAMer challenged Rep. King to tear up her DACA card, and he was verbally abusive towards her. Dreamer Challenges Steve King’s Extremism While Rand Paul Flees The Scene:
A Dreamer activist had an encounter with Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Steve King at a fundraiser for King in Iowa last night, and the reactions of the two GOP leaders exemplified the current state of the Republican Party: one doubled down on his extremist rhetoric while the other fled the scene.
When activist Erika Andiola introduced herself as a Dreamer to King and Paul, who were sitting next to each other, Paul finished a bite of his sandwich and then quickly walked away.
* * *
Andiola offered King — the anti-immigrant fanatic who is frequently allowed to shape the House GOP’s immigration policy — her DACA card, the document from the program which allows Dreamers to stay in the country that King has led the fight to defund.
“If you are trying to kill DACA, I want to give you the opportunity to rip my DACA card,” she told King, who declined to destroy her card.
King also denied making comments alleging that “for every [Dreamer] who’s a valedictorian, there’s another hundred out there who they weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’ve been hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.” [Yes, he said it. He was criticized by House leadership for his comments in July 2013.]
Grabbing her wrist, King said, “You are very good at English. You can understand the English language so don’t act like you don’t because you are saying something that is not true.”
He then repeatedly asked Andiola if she was a drug smuggler and if she “understands the English language,” while also asking questions about her mother.
Following the encounter, King said Dreamer activists “want to turn America into a third world country.”
So what’s it going to be, Ms. McSally? If you are going to align yourself with a racist xenophobe like Rep. Steve King, you are going to have to answer whether you agree with his offensive views on immigration or not. You either disown him, or you own him. What’s it going to be, Ms. McSally? I’m awaiting your answers.