Raul A. Reyes: Candidates’ takes on immigration prove how far to the right the GOP has moved

The Republican presidential candidates — all but frontrunner Donald Trump — debated in Milwaukee last night.  Immigration came up as a topic and we heard a lot of tough, Trump-like talk.  On CNN, Raul A. Reyes focuses on the “[c]andidates’ takes on immigration” and  how they “prove how far to the right the GOP has moved.”  He writes:

“Thanks to former President Donald Trump deciding to skip the first GOP presidential debate, the evening had the feel of a birthday party or celebrity roast where the guest of honor decided not to show up. . . . 

When immigration came up, it seemed like a contest over who could be the most misleading and extreme on the issue. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed to send troops to the southern border to use force and leave drug pushers `stone cold dead’ — an apparent endorsement of extrajudicial killings.

The governor said that he would support a military incursion into Mexico by Special Forces to take out drug cartels, which is truly an appalling proposal. And Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina also bemoaned the flow of fentanyl across the border. What neither of them mentioned, as they conflated migration with drug smuggling, is that almost 90% of convicted fentanyl traffickers last year were US citizens.

Former Vice President Mike Pence declared that, when President Joe Biden took over office, `he threw open the southern border of the United States.’ This simply does not square with reality. Our borders are not open. The Biden administration has imposed significant restrictions on asylum-seekers, and the number of unauthorized border-crossings at the southwest border for July 2023 was down 27% from July 2022.

It was former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who took one of the most extreme immigration positions, saying that undocumented people who are already here would have to be removed.”

You get the picture.

KJ