Valdez: Trump is GOP's designated dehumanizer

Every election cycle the GOP validates the extremist view that undocumented immigrants are not like you and me. This year’s designated dehumanizer is Donald Trump.

The other Republican candidates scramble to keep up or keep away. Some are astute enough to know this stuff won’t play well later when the GOP has to appeal to voters who are not predominantly conservative, White and gray. But the GOP’s cautionary notes to itself are largely about politics, not the people who are being vilified.

George Bush’s brother dared to suggest that immigrants might be humans, too. But he didn’t do it too loudly. Republican primary candidates know what they have to do.

Trump is reading from an old playbook and camping it up a bit for the cameras. Send everybody back? Old news. End birthright citizenship? Old news. Beef up border security? C’mon, that’s been the main strategy since Bill Clinton was president.

And the wall? My heavens, we’ve been hearing about that danged fence for a very long time.

Does Trump even mean it? Who knows. He's selling a tried and true cynical strategy.

Arizona’s GOP Gov. Doug Ducey was a border hawk until he got elected. He needed those extremist voters. Now he sings “Come Let Us Trade Together,” from the Chamber of Commerce hymnbook.

Did Ducey mean all the get-tough talk? Who knows.

Some suggest all this subterfuge is OK. It’s how you play politics. After all, a candidate has to get past the primary before he or she can dazzle us with amazing integrity as an office holder. Right.

But this strategy hurts real people and corrodes the debate about a real problem.

It is a repeated, periodic validation of extremist views. It fertilizes a garden that grows racism and xenophobia.

It amplifies and legitimizes the voices of those whose mantra is “no amnesty,” and whose Know-Nothing approach has blocked immigration reform for decades.

It tips the discussion in favor of a radical, extremist view.

Should American be able to control its borders? Yes. Absolutely.

Should our nation have polices based on our professed respect for human rights and dignity? Well, duh.

That's not the kind of policy we have and it's not the kind of policy that comes from enabling migrant baiting.

Humane, effective policies come realizing that migrants are just like you and me. It comes from asking yourself what could possibly be so bad that you’d risk rape, assault and death by dehydration to get away from it?

How desperate would you have to be to send your beloved child on a risky journey into known danger? Just how dangerous is it at "home"?

Answer those questions honestly and you have the basis for a humane and compassionate immigration policy.

Instead, we get the question: How much higher do we have to make that fence?

Thank the GOP.