Arizona Supreme Court Justice: GOP Nativism Has Paul Ryan Ducking-and-Covering on Immigration
"When you see someone like Paul Ryan really duck-and-cover on the immigration issue you know that the pendulum has swung in the wrong direction."
"It is not in my nature to be pessimistic, but it is impossible not to be pessimistic about immigration reform." So says Clint Bolick, the veteran libertarian lawyer, pro-immigration advocate, and newly appointed justice of the Arizona Supreme Court.
In an exclusive interview with Reason, Bolick took aim at the GOP's increasingly hostile anti-immigration stance. For Bolick, who in 2013 co-authored (with Jeb Bush) the pro-immigration manifesto Immigration Wars, the recent rise of conservatism nativism has been deeply discouraging.
"The current Republican campaign has been a reflection of a very disturbing nativist trend," Bolick told Reason. "One of the things that has especially disturbed me is, as we report in the book—which was published only three years ago, so things have really moved in a bad direction really quickly—mainstream Republican opinion at that time and consistently before that time was pro-immigration. The typical Republican strongly supported border security, but also strongly supported a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and other, I would say, mainstream or moderate reforms. For the first time in well over a decade, polls this year show Republican sentiment growing far more nativist than ever before. It is impossible to get systemic immigration reform without bipartisan consensus. And when you see someone like Paul Ryan really duck-and-cover on the immigration issue you know that the pendulum has swung in the wrong direction."
Click here to read Reason's full interview with Clint Bolick, libertarian lawyer turned Arizona Supreme Court justice.
