“The Republican Party’s embrace of the nativist base is probably the most self destructive” decision party leaders could make, Frank Sharry, executive director of the immigration reform group America’s Voice, told Roll Call.

Given that Latinos tend to be Catholic and socially conservative, many might have leaned Republican, Sharry notes, had the GOP not started adopting a nativist agenda. This latest anti-immigrant stance, Sharry argues, risks transforming Latino voters  from a swing group to “a reliable bloc” for Democrats.

Henry Fernandez, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, agreed.

“Immigration is a constant theme,” he told Roll Call. “It’s red meat for foot soldiers who are willing to hold up signs at town halls,” adding that the anti-immigrant rhetoric encourages the participation of “dangerous people in our public discourse.”

As I reported last week, protesters at town hall meetings are increasingly railing against lawmakers for seeking to provide health care to illegal immigrants, although the pending House bill not only denies benefits to illegal immigrants but severely restricts benefits to legal immigrants as well. Still, the anger fomented by anti-health care reform groups has spilled over into nativist death threats.

Last week outside President Obama’s town hall meeting in New Hampshire, one protester shouted, “We don’t need illegals,” adding, “Send ‘em back with a bullet in the head.”

Usually state delegations voted in lockstep — a predictable consequence of the plane being constructed in nearly every state in the country — but when they didn’t, a Democrat voted to stop funding and a Republican voted to keep it. There are three exceptions there. In Alabama, Sen. Richard Shelby voted against the plane and Sen. Jeff Sessions voted for it; both are Republicans. Similarly, in Oklahoma, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) voted against the plane while Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) voted for it. And in New Hampshire. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) voted for the plane but her Republican colleague, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), voted against it.

As Roll Call reports, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs acknowledged that despite “the president’s desire for it to happen,” referring to comprehensive immigration reform, “currently where we sit the math makes that real difficult.”

President Obama is scheduled to meet with members of Congress on Thursday to discuss the issue — a meeting immigrant advocates are eagerly billing as the “opening bell” on moving immigration reform forward.

According to Gibbs, though, Obama isn’t planning to ring that bell anytime real soon. Gibbs said Obama hopes that “later this year that we can have the beginning of formal debate on that.”