EDITORIAL: Speaker Paul Ryan calls the progressive bluff on ICE

The loud and metastasizing far-left Democratic flank continues its aggressive effort to undermine the party’s efforts to make major gains in the November elections.

Not surprisingly, Republicans are all too eager to help — and the results border on the farcical.

Last week, a handful of House Democrats introduced legislation to address the latest fashionable progressive cause du jour. The measure would eliminate the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, replacing it with a more “humane” agency created with the help of “immigrants’ rights” activists.

Can you say “train wreck”?

“This is the agency that gets gangs out of communities, that helps prevent drugs from flowing into our schools, that rescues people from human trafficking,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said. “They want to get rid of this agency?”

The measure has no chance of passing, of course. Moderate Democrats would never touch it. But Speaker Ryan was only too happy to announce that he’ll hold a vote on the issue in an effort to identify the open-borders crowd now making noise within the Democratic Party.

“It’s the craziest position I’ve ever seen,” the speaker noted. “And they are just tripping over themselves to move too far to the left. They are out of the mainstream of America. And that is one of the reasons why I feel very good about this fall.”

This has caused great consternation among Democrats, who are outraged and shocked — shocked! — that Republicans would actually schedule a vote on legislation they proposed. In fact, the bill’s three co-sponsors — Reps. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Adriano Espaillat of New York — now vow to vote against their own proposal.

“We know Speaker (Paul) Ryan is not serious about passing our ‘Establishing a Humane Immigration Enforcement System Act,’ so members of Congress, advocacy groups, and impacted communities will not engage in this political stunt,” the three Democrats said in a statement reported by CNN. “If Speaker Ryan puts our bill on the floor, we plan to vote ‘no’ and will instead use the opportunity to force an urgently needed and long-overdue conversation on the House floor.”

Say what? Of course the vote is a political ploy. So why walk right into it? The bill itself is also a political stunt. Why offer the measure in the first place if you’re simply trying to appease radical collectivists rather than propose serious legislation? And if you’re truly interested in abolishing ICE, why shed your convictions and turn and run when House Republicans call the bluff?

Reps. Pocan, Jayapal and Espaillat — true profiles in courage.