Kirsten Powers: GOP's nasty border bill

The GOP has shown time and again that it is incapable of passing any meaningful immigration reform. But give them tens of thousands of Central American children fleeing violence, and they fly into action. Turns out, what animates today's Republicans is deporting kids.

So inspired were they, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives stayed late Friday to distort and demagogue a humanitarian crisis, passing a reprehensible bill that the Republicans claim addresses the border crisis.

Kevin Appleby, director of the Office of Migration Policy at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told me, "This bill guts any real due process for these children and ensures that the vast majority will be sent back to their persecutors. ... It would literally send some of these children back to their deaths."

The bill is based on an avalanche of misinformation, starting with Sen. Ted Cruz's baseless assertion that "what is causing this humanitarian crisis is that these children believe that they will be granted, in the future, amnesty." No, the cause is violence in the kids' home countries. They're fleeing not only to the U.S but also to Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Belize. It has nothing to do with U.S. law, which doesn't even provide a pathway to citizenship, let alone amnesty. Of 404 recently arrived children surveyed by the United Nations refugee agency, only nine mentioned the United States' immigration policy.

But what's most galling about Cruz's statement is the lie that the GOP is somehow burdened with humanitarian concerns as Republicans scheme to ship the kids back to the nightmarish circumstances they've escaped. This charade includes the Orwellian heading of "protecting children" for a section in the House bill that puts the children into an expedited removal process.

In a particularly nasty turn, the GOP passed an accompanying bill that defunded President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which Republicans have erroneously linked to the border crisis. To invoke DACA, a child must have lived continuously in the U.S. since 2007, something newly arriving children cannot claim.

For now, a Democratic Senate and president ensure that won't happen. But it won't stop the GOP from continuing to foment fear of these desperate children.

Heidi Altman, legal director of the Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition, told me that the GOP bill creates a "sham system" that asks children without lawyers "to prove to a judge that they are likely to be eligible for legal status in the U.S., with seven days or less to prepare their defense. It's a test that sets children up to ... be deported."

Accepting the 1980 Republican presidential nomination, Ronald Reagan asked, "Can we doubt that only a divine providence placed this land, this island of freedom, here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breathe freely?" He invoked America's history of welcoming those fleeing persecution, violence and famine.

Friday night, the Republican Party made a mockery of this noble history.

Kirsten Powers writes weekly for USA TODAY.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors. To read more columns like this, go to the opinion front page or follow us on twitter@USATopinion or Facebook.