Big Surprise: Kris Kobach Still Believes in Self-Deportation:

Remember how the Mitt Romney-espoused "self-deportation" rhetoric was supposed to end up in the dustbin of history following President Obama's huge margins among Latino voters back in November? Apparently no one told Kris Kobach.

The Kansas secretary of state and intellectual author of harsh laws in states like Arizona and Alabama was back at it again earlier today, this time at the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on the Gang of Eight's immigration bill. In response to questions from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Kobach said that "self-deportation is not some radical idea. It is simply the idea that people may comply with the law by their own choice."

GOP Immigration Guru Insists DREAMers Should Self-Deport:

Speaking at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing, Kobach insisted that DREAM eligible applicants, many of whom have lived in the United States for most of their lives, should not be rewarded for the “sins of their parents.” Instead, DREAMers should go back to their parents’ country of origin, Kobach said, and “get in line with the rest of their countrymen.” “That just defies basic compassion,” Durbin shot back, pointing to to Gabby Pacheco, an undocumented immigrant brought to America at the age of eight from Ecuador, who was testifying alongside Kobach. “She’s never known any other country,” Durbin explained, “this is her home.” [...]

Kobach responded by reviving self-deportation, arguing that “if you ratchet up the penalties for violating the law, people choose to leave.”

But Durbin predicted that the momentum has shifted from deportation to reform after the 2012 election. “Ultimately the voters have the last word. The voters had the last word on self-deportation on Nov. 6, so we’re beyond that now,” he said.