Following the killing last month of a second Minneapolis protester by immigration enforcement agents, Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., took to The New York Times to urge his colleagues to use the tragedies as an opportunity to finally come up with a comprehensive fix for the nation’s failed immigration policies.  

As a perennially vulnerable Republican from a Democratic state, Lawler is keenly aware that what had once been his party’s most politically potent issue had suddenly become a vulnerability that jeopardizes not only his own reelection but also Republican control of Congress.

Public outrage over the killings has changed the terms of debate. It forced President Donald Trump to, in his own words,“de-escalate a little bit” and created space for Senate Republicans to engage Democratic arguments for restrictions on the heavily armed agents as a condition for funding the agency for the balance of the year. 

And what was the response from House Democrats to these signals of possible Republican accommodation?

To dismiss them as acts of political desperation, demand the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and threaten to close down the government until Trump fires his immigration consiglieri and deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, and calls off his nationwide deportation drive.  

Never mind that Democrats, as the minority party, are limited in their ability to........

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