Geraldo Rivera, writing in his column at Fox News Latino, says the Republican Party is blowing an opportunity to woo GOP voters with a strong anti-immigration stance in its convention platform at a time when President Obama can be perceived as weak on immigration.
As Rivera wrote, “With ample justification, Republicans are mounting an all-out attack on President Obama’s hypocrisy and pandering on the immigration issue. No president has done more to deport undocumented immigrants than Mr. Obama.”
He adds, “Further, his support for the DREAM Act, and his stunning proclamation of ‘deferred deportation’ for those youngsters who entered the country before the age of 16, came three years after it could have, and then only in an election year. And remember, he promised to present a plan on comprehensive immigration reform within the first 100 days of his presidency.”
Yet, the Republicans are attacking from a point of weakness, Rivera opined. He said the plank in the Republican Party platform on illegal immigration is “harsh and ultimately self-defeating.”
Rivera didn’t mince words: “Devoid of the slightest kindness for the undocumented, the plank calls for strengthening the border fence, escalating crackdowns on illegal immigrants so that their lives here are so miserable that they ‘self-deport,’ and for the adoption by other states of Arizona’s draconian and mostly unconstitutional SB1070 ‘Show Me Your Papers’ statute.
“Additionally, the GOP plank calls for the federal government to withhold funding to universities that allows undocumented students to get in-state tuition; and it provides for the withholding of certain federal funding to “sanctuary cities” like New York and San Francisco, which treat their undocumented residents with respect and compassion.
“In sum, the platform plank on undocumented immigration rejects all notions of compromise and appeals to the hard-right of the party.”
Read Rivera’s entire column.