Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Republicans, especially right-wing Republicans, have often seen the immigration reform debate as a tool that they can use against the Democratic Party, most specifically President Obama.

To this way of thinking, the current debate over immigration reform and Obama's decision to use executive orders to implement the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy provide an excellent way for the GOP to demonstrate Obama's willingness to exceed his authority as well as energizing the Republican Party's anti-immigrant base.

In the short run, this policy may reap some benefits for the GOP in 2014, especially in areas where Democratic or moderate Republican incumbents are facing a serious challenge from the right.

However, whatever benefits the GOP is likely to gain from this action will be far outweighed by the long-term damage to the GOP as a viable national party.

One factor many Republican partisans overlook is the fact that the existence of DACA is a testament to the inability of the GOP to provide any alternative to Obama's current policy.

This factor is as much due to John Boehner's inability to control the House Republicans as it is due to any action on the part of the Democratic Party.

In fact, the denial of Obama's emergency funding request for various border and immigration measures places the onus for this current crisis squarely upon the GOP in the eyes of many observers.

Additionally, this Congressional inaction undercuts the claims that the president is engaged in some form of imperial overreach.

As many legal analysts have pointed out, DACA is an example of executive discretion in that it simply provides guidelines on where the government should focus its efforts.

With over 11.5 million illegal immigrants currently present in the US, Immigration and Customs Enforcement can only target a small portion of the nation's total population of illegal immigrants.

DACA simply provides guidance in order to ensure that the US' limited immigration resources will be focused on illegal immigrants who pose a real threat.

Most importantly, Obama is not defying Congress' authority, as Congress has been unable to pass any law banning or replacing DACA. The claims of an "imperial presidency" founder upon the mere fact that as yet Obama has no law to transgress against.

This will likely see the moderate vote being more or less unswayed by GOP accusations. At the very most, this current controversy is likely to produce irritation aimed at both parties, rather than focused hostility against the president's policy.

Even worse, many moderate Republicans are as irritated by their party's inability to pass immigration reform as they are by any actions on the part of the administration.

Former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, who served under George W. Bush, has argued that not only are Obama's actions legal, but that the Republican Party must work to pass comprehensive immigration reform that also includes a path to citizenship.

Other Republicans, especially those eyeing the presidency in 2016 are also ambivalent about the current debate, trapped between the GOP's right wing and the need to compete for a national electorate that possesses an ever-growing minority component.

And here, as in so many other areas, the GOP's inability to free itself from its radical right-wing members has badly hampered its long-term ability to compete for national political offices.

While some current office holders, such as Ted Cruz, may find their position strengthened by the current GOP stand on immigration policy, they have badly hampered their ability to lay claim to the presidency in 2016.

As with other measures taken by the GOP, opposition to immigration reform and DACA alike will confront the Republican Party with an inability to reach out to some of the fastest growing components of the US electorate.

This will unavoidably see the GOP increasingly placed on the defensive in both national and local elections, whatever benefits its opposition to immigration reform may reap in the near future.

Ultimately, this current debate reflects the new reality of the GOP. It has become a fractured party, not simply fighting against the Democratic Party, but immersed in a bitter civil war between internal moderate and conservative wings.

While DACA and this current immigration debate may motivate the party faithful, the specter of a GOP that seems unable to offer any workable alternatives, whether they involve immigration, the budget, or US foreign policy, is likely to see the Republican Party falling out of favor with the moderate voters it will need to win in 2016 and beyond.

The author is a political writer based in Southern California. jgray22a@gmail.com