On Immigration, What’s the Hurry?

... The Democrats have wanted amnesty and vastly increased low-skill immigration for a long time, but why is now–2014–a good time for Republicans to join them? As things stand, public revulsion at Obamacare, along with the usual sixth-year malaise, almost guarantees that the GOP gains seats in the House. It is likely to take the Senate as well. So why is this a good time for Republican leaders to introduce an issue that will split the party wide open, anger most of the GOP base, and undoubtedly cause some conservatives to stay home rather than voting Republican in November? From a political point of view, now is a terrible time to take up immigration reform.

So, too, from a policy perspective. If Republicans want a better immigration bill, why not wait until next year, when they likely will control the Senate? Then they can pass a bill that is not larded up with the extreme provisions that Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer et al. have inserted into the current Senate legislation...

It seems clear that what is driving the leaders of both parties, but especially the Republicans, is that more than a good immigration bill, they want a bipartisan immigration bill... When voters see that the essence of “reform” is amnesty, they will be angry. When voters see that there is still no effective enforcement of our immigration laws, they will be angry... When that time comes, leaders of both parties want the voters’ anger to be directed at both parties, and therefore, as a practical matter, at neither.

John Boehner and his colleagues want to do immigration “reform” hand in hand with the Democrats, even though doing so imperils their chances of winning the Senate, because they want responsibility for unpopular immigration legislation to be shared...

...But why are Republicans willing to join in what looks like a suicide pact?...  the principal reason the Republican House leadership is willing to take such terrible risks for the sake of bipartisan immigration legislation is that the party’s donors want it. The party’s leaders are faced with a stark choice between the wishes of the rank and file and those of the donor community, and they have chosen the donors...