February 15, 2018 12:00 PM UTC

Tancredo's Ghost Looms Large As Immigration Efforts Teeter

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• by: Colorado Pols

Lindsey Graham continues tirade against Trump administration and its handling of immigration. “As long as Stephen Miller is running the White House and Tom Tancredo’s press secretary at DHS,” things are going nowhere fast

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 15, 2018

Politico reports on the troubled place immigration reform efforts in Washington find themselves today:

A bipartisan agreement unveiled Wednesday faces intense skepticism from the left flank of the Democratic Caucus and hardening resistance from many Republicans amid a White House campaign to defeat it, including a Thursday veto threat. It would give an estimated 1.8 million undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship while spending $25 billion on border security…

The Trump administration stepped up its resistance to the bipartisan immigration amendment overnight, with the Department of Homeland Security releasing a comment blasting it as “an egregious violation of” the president’s four-part framework that would create “mass amnesty.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a supporter of the bipartisan proposal, slammed DHS on Thursday for “acting less like a partner and more like an adversary.” [Pols emphasis]

“Instead of offering thoughts and advice — or even constructive criticism — they are acting more like a political organization intent on poisoning the well,” Graham said in a statement.

Here’s the Tweet from the Department of Homeland Security’s press secretary that set off Sen. Lindsey Graham:

Schumer-Rounds-Collins destroys the ability of @DHSgov to enforce immigration laws, creating a mass amnesty for over 10 million illegal aliens, including criminals. https://t.co/ERbAjNXLZM

— Tyler Q. Houlton (@SpoxDHS) February 15, 2018

If the name Tyler Q. Houlton rings a bell for local political observers, there’s a very good reason. Houlton is a longtime Colorado political operative, who once worked at the right-wing “news site” Colorado Observer as well as the conservative advocacy group Compass Colorado. Prior to that, Houlton served as the spokesperson for Rep. Tom Tancredo–during the same time period that Tancredo became persona non grata in the Bush White House for his nativist antics on immigration at the same time that Bush was pushing for comprehensive immigration reform.

With all of this in mind, Lindsey Graham’s inside-baseball dig at Houlton reveals a much bigger divide between Republicans than is generally recognized. Appointing Tancredo’s former spox to run the press shop for the Department of Homeland Security is a highly provocative act as Graham’s burn demonstrates. But it also shows again just how far from the mainstream the Trump administration is on the issue of immigration.

Far enough that Team Tancredo is a perfect fit.