WSJ editorial: ‘Deport Nikki Haley’

By Lynn R. Mitchell

Bearing Drift colleague Matt Hall has a post responding to Ann Coulter’s tweet during the State of the Union response by South Carolina’s Republican Governor Nikki Haley that said, “Trump should deport Nikki Haley.”

Interesting that the tweet has Governor Haley, 44, now being defended by many mainstream Republicans and blasted by tea partiers who helped put her in power.

The Wall Street Journal also responded with an editorial that noted, “A party that rejects Nikki Haley as a spokeswoman is one that doesn’t really want to build a governing majority.”

The editorial, posted by Governor Haley on her Facebook page, began:

When Nikki Haley offered the Republican response to President Obama’s final State of the Union, the American people heard an articulate conservative who has twice been elected Governor in South Carolina. It’s a sign of the GOP’s distemper that some conservatives denounced her because she didn’t denounce legal immigration.

Gov. Haley’s parents came to America from India. Her father taught botany at Voorhees College. Her mother started what would become a multimillion-dollar clothing company out of the living room of the family home. As she put it Tuesday, “I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants who reminded my brothers, my sister and me every day how blessed we were to live in this country.”

Her conservative critics unloaded. “Trump should deport Nikki Haley” went one tweet. The next morning on “Fox & Friends,” Donald Trump declared that Gov. Haley is “very weak on immigration.”

The child of immigrant Indian Sikh parents, Nikki Haley was born in South Carolina and is a Clemson Tiger. She was voted into office five years ago with the help of a more pragmatic tea party than exists today.

The WSJ answered Trump’s accusation that Governor Haley is weak on immigration:

Are we talking about the same Nikki Haley? The woman who says “illegal immigration is not welcome in South Carolina”? Who signed a law toughening the state’s illegal immigration reform act, which requires employers to verify the immigration status of new hires? Who has fought President Obama’s bid to resettle unvetted Syrian refugees? And whose state has joined 16 others in a lawsuit against Mr. Obama for what they say is his unconstitutional executive order on illegal immigration?

The distinction Gov. Haley is trying to make is between a functioning, legal immigration system that works in America’s interest—which Republicans say they want—and the unlawful, broken and arbitrary system that encourages illegality—which is what we now have and which President Obama exploits to the Democrats’ political advantage.

The attacks on Ms. Haley show that many on the right these days oppose any immigrants, even those who arrive legally. They also want to make opposition to immigration a GOP litmus test. A party that rejects Nikki Haley as a spokeswoman is one that doesn’t really want to build a governing majority.

Though she never mentioned Trump by name, it was clear Haley was aiming her remarks at him when she noted, “During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. We must resist that temptation. No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country.”

As a minority woman, Haley has faced head-on the Charleston church shooting and removal of the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds as well as leading a state that saw devastating historic flooding in 2015. Though her tenure has had its rough-and-tumble moments, Nikki Haley has evolved into what some have called a leader of the New South. After her SOTU response this week, some have mentioned her name while compiling names for vice president in this presidential election year.

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One thought on “WSJ editorial: ‘Deport Nikki Haley’

  1. C.T. Lucy, Jr. says:

    Other than native Americans ( who many themselves seemed to have immigrated from Asia across the Pacific land bridge eons ago) we’re ALL immigrants – starting here in Virginia in 1624 with my paternal forebears. Part of my maternal forebears immigrated from Germany in the 18th Century to avoid the constant conscription needed to fight all those continuous wars in Europe. The other maternal immigrants (Duncan Graham family) immigrated from Scotland – not sure when. Nikki is my kind of gal !! Like myself, she seemed interested in the ORIGINAL tea party, but changed her mind as their leadership evolved extremely right. She has a bright future, I think and hope.
    Interestingly, the Eastern American Indians hardly resemble the western American Indians physically or culturally. Wonder where THEY immigrated from ??

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