So now we know what it takes to unite House Democrats,
former Canadian citizen Sen. Ted "Calgary" Cruz, and the right-wing Heritage Foundation: House Speaker John Boehner's plan to accelerate the deportation of refugee children. Of course, the reasons that House Democrats oppose the measure, which is slated to come up for a vote on Thursday, is different than the reason Ted Cruz does.
On the one hand, Democrats are against the measure because it simultaneously weakens a 2008 law designed to stop child trafficking and fails to provide enough funding to adequately deal with the influx of refugee children from Central America.
On the other hand, Cruz and Heritage are against the measure because it doesn't include language reversing President Obama's policy of deferring deportation of undocumented children who have spent nearly their entire lives in the United States, arrived before 2007, and have virtually no connection to the country in which they were born. They claim—absurdly—that the deferred action program has led to increased immigration of unaccompanied children from Central American countries, and say they will oppose any legislation that doesn't reverse the policy.
With both House Democratic leadership and the Cruz-Heritage coalition urging votes against the House GOP's proposal, the outcome of the measure is in doubt. Even Boehner himself recognized he doesn't yet have the votes, saying of House Republicans "we've got a little more work to do."
We'll find out Thursday if Boehner and his leadership team are able to get their bill through the House, but the good news is that even if it does pass, it's not going anywhere in the United States Senate—at least not without major changes.