Why is the GOP leadership pushing amnesty for Democrats?

Democrats prioritize amnesty for illegal aliens because it will give them a whole new class of Undocumented Democrats. "Immigrants" overwhelmingly vote Democratic.

Indeed, even just talking about legalization / amnesty encourages more illegal aliens to sneak into the United States. Now, thousands of unaccompanied children are streaming across our porous border into the United States, hoping for a "dream amnesty".

The disastrous Senate legalization / amnesty bill will bring a minimum of 33 million people into the country during its first decade of operation alone. Additional potential voters would rise to nearly 10 million by 2024 and 18 million by 2028, the majority of whom will vote Democratic by a 2 to 1 margin.

So why are Republican leaders so intent upon helping garner millions of new Democratic voters? Especially when only 3 percent of Americans think immigration is a top priority and a full 71% of Republicans support enforcing existing immigration laws?

It's not because the GOP leadership care about the future of America or their Republican voter base. They think they are immune to the pervasive resentment propagating among conservative voters because of the legalization / amnesty sell-out. GOP leaders are of the opinion that the only thing that matters at election time is a huge stream of dollars from their wealthy donor base. They think they can thumb their nose at Republican voters, who really don't have anywhere else to turn. Yet.

It's pretty clear that legalization /amnesty will mark the suicide of the Republican party.

Yet the GOP leader fat cats are quite content to not only let that happen, but to facilitate it - because they, after all, have the financial support of wealthy donors and the Chamber of Commerce.

Yet one must ask: why are Republican leaders so intent upon helping garner millions of new Democratic voters now?¹

Why not wait until they hopefully gain seats in the House and Senate after mid-term elections? The answer is that if Republicans wait until they are more powerful in Congress, the anger and resentment of the American people - particularly among their voting base - will fall squarely on the backs of the Republicans who facilitated amnesty. But if the GOP leadership work with Democrats this year to implement legalization / amnesty, they will be able to share the blame and say they had to go along with the Democratic majority.

GOP leaders want a bipartisan immigration bill because they think it will insulate them from voter resentment. In other words, they seek a more benign form of GOP party suicide.

As observed in the article "On Immigration, What's the Hurry?":

A case in point is Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO District 6). Coffman, a former Marine who once opposed amnesty / pathway to citizenship. Coffman now supports a path to citizenship for illegal aliens.

Part of the reason for his abrupt turnabout can be explained by redistricting, which placed him in the middle of Aurora, a mecca for immigrants, both legal and illegal. But one might suspect that Coffman also is listening to the GOP elite, who have convinced him that supporting legalization / amnesty will garner a huge abundance of campaign donations. (For a refutation of Coffman's rationalization of his about-face, see "A dissection of Mike Coffman's misguided amnesty missive".)

Fortunately, there still are a few elected public servants in Washington who stand strong for America through the storm of political corruption. One of them is Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who stated that:

We can only hope that Colorado's Republicans - particularly those who are former Marines - grow the necessary backbone to similarly stand strong for America in lieu of kowtowing to the misguided donor oligarchy.

Notes:

1. This question was originally analyzed in the article "On Immigration, What's the Hurry?" by John Hinderaker, Powerline, February 3, 2014.