Trump’s Unique Chance On Immigration: The flip-flop would stand as one of the largest betrayals in American political history

Only Nixon could go to China and it may be that only Trump can get immigration reform done.

There have been several attempts at immigration reform over the past two decades. George W. Bush tried to pass a comprehensive immigration bill in 2007 that paired a guest worker program with increased border enforcement. Six years later, in 2013, the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” tried to forge a similar compromise bill. Both attempts failed, largely due to conservative opposition to “amnesty,” apparently defined by many on the right as “anything short of deportation.”

As a consequence of these failures, 16 years after the September 11 attacks, the US border is still not secure. We still don’t have a way of tracking visitors who overstay their visas, as several of the al Qaeda hijackers did. The all or nothing approach to immigration reform by Republicans has effectively kept the border open for a decade and a half.

While Republicans derided reformers as “RINOs,” Donald Trump campaigned on a hard line of immigration policy. Trump’s Wall, deportation proposals and harsh rhetoric earned him an anti-immigrant reputation even though at times he did hint that he was open to compromise.

Read the rest from David Thornton HERE.