But after being stripped of all the things that come with the Majority Leader position — a police detail that drives him around, extra staff, and a big office — Cantor announced his last day as a member of the House will be August 18.Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©“We’re looking at possibly one of the most anti-Hispanic Congresses in generations,” said Rep. Joe Garcia (D-FL) to reporters in the U.S. Capitol yesterday.
With Reps. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) and Steve King (R-IA) in charge of strategics, House Republicans voted last night to deport over 500,000 people.  Since August 2013, 550,000 people have applied for Deferred Action.  At 8:30 p.m. last night, two hundred and twelve Republicans in the House voted in favor of ending the program.
The anti-Deferred Action bill has zero chance of becoming law.  Yesterday’s events were political “message vote” games with election day 95 days away.  No member of Congress had actually seen the final bill voted on until hours before votes were called.
Consistent with a GOP controlled House with a thin schedule that has passed fewer bills than any other in history, another answer to a problem facing the country was met with doing nothing.  Or more specifically: Passing D.O.A. political statement legislation everyone knows will never become law.  But a serious problem remains: Officials in Texas are quickly running out of money to deal with the number of immigrants crossing the border from Mexico.
Last night’s efforts were part of an odd and ill-timed anti-immigrant vote led by the right wing of the Republican party.  Despite all the talk at the beginning of 2013 of the GOP’s need to “expand the party” after Gov. Mitt Romney lost to President Obama in 2012 House Republicans sounded more like the party of the past than of the future during yesterday’s debate.
It’s “like I ordered if off the menu,” said Rep. Steve King (R-IA) on the anti-Dreamers bill.  That Rep. King was the lead-author of the anti-Deferred Action bill is telling since Rep. King is known for his racist comments against Hispanic immigrants.
“For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,” Rep. King said in June 2013.  Last August at a Tea Party rally, King said,”if you bring people from a violent civilization into a less-violent civilization, you’re going to have more violence right?”
That immigrants from Mexico are often spoken of within the context of criminality by House Republicans was not lost on Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL). At a press conference on Capitol Hill yesterday, he said that, “GOP leaders embraced “the least common denominator of hatefulness toward the immigrant community” with the King-Bachmann anti-Dreamers bill.
Speaking on the GOP’s references to Mexican immigrants, Gutierrez said that, “for weeks … they have said that they are disease-ridden, lice-filled, gang bangers, drug dealers and mules of the drug cartels who have come here in hoards to invade our nation… And now they are demonstrating that that’s how they feel in their legislation.”
“It sends a vitally important message that minors wanting to come here in the future will … have absolutely no opportunity to receive DACA benefits,” said House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA).  During the 113th Congress, Goodlatte has failed to move on the Senate passed immigration bill.
Four Democrats voted with Republicans: Reps. Collin Peterson (D-MN), Mike McIntyre (D-NC), John Barrow (D-GA), and Nick Rahall (D-WV).  Among the eleven Republicans voted with Democrats and against the right wing Bachmann/King anti-Dreamer bill were:  Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL),  Jeff Denham (R-CA), Cory Gardner (R-CA), and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL).
“This is one of the most mean-spirited and anti-immigrant pieces of legislation I have seen in all my years of Congress,” said Rep.  John Conyers (D-MI) who has been in Congress for 49 years.
Outgoing House Republican Majority Leader didn’t bother to vote.  Making no attempt to prove the Eric-Cantor-haters like Laura Ingraham wrong, Cantor made none of the immigration related votes last night.  Cantor lost his House seat in large part because of his moderation on the issue.