Boehner & Immigration Reform

I suppose this was predictable. Speaker of the House John Boehner has a Republican caucus that is divided on immigration reform. So, how to unite them? Blame Obama. As Politico reports, Boehner is saying the House can't pass immigration reform because they can't trust the President to enforce it. (At least he did not blame Benghazi.) To a degree, I worry that pro-immigrant activists have played into Boehner's hands by calling on the President to stop deportations. I am as alarmed as anyone by the number of deportations on Obama's watch. But, the worst thing he could do now would be to suspend them and fulfill the GOP's scare narrative. Comprehensive immigration reform is the best, indeed the only, way to ameliorate the sufferings caused by so many deportations. Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, a tendency to which activists of all kinds are uniquely prone. And, let's not let Boehner off the hook with such an amorphous objection.