Sad but true. People like mccain and boehner and ryan and romney and jeb bush are taking huge bribes from the illegal alien lobby. No other way to explain why they support amnesty for illegals knowing that all these invaders will then go on welfare and vote dem.
1 - Because your dumbed down perspective is just false.
2 - Because the position they are now taking is politically expedient.
The Republicans have horribly mishandled too many things over the past several years. The move to make illegal presence a felon failed because Bush mucked it up. Republicans were not willing to stand up to Bush, and that was a mistake. That was a win for the open borders crowd because it make the Republicans look like they were engaging in a frivolous effort. Since Obama has taken office Republicans have devoted too much effort to frivolous efforts against Obama on birtherism, doomed efforts to repeal Obamacare, shutting down the government last year, and now the ridiculous effort to "defund" non-deportation.
Timing is everything and the Republicans have mismanaged theirs too many times in recent memory. They should have pushed immigration harder during Bush's Presidency. Meaningful reform would have been possible back then, but they waffled. On the other hand, they should have waited on Obamacare, until a time like now where they control both houses, or even until Obama was replaced. But they had to run half cocked, and now repealing Obamacare will be much more difficult and take much longer simply because the public's patience has been worn thin and the public is tired of idealism over results. Republicans in general have yelled so much for losing propositions that many in the public have tuned them out into background noise. That is leading people like Jeb Bush to attempt to move forward and separate from the past mistakes.