They really have no shame, these Republican representatives and senators who dance to any tune Donald Trump plays on his Liar’s Harp. They quashed an important immigration bill because Donald Trump wanted a lack of action on the border as a campaign issue.
They really do have no sense of shame, or perhaps they do, but the prospect of Trump’s ire is simply too heavy a burden to bear. Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming summed up his Party’s strategy quite candidly after his fellow Republicans voted to reject the border legislation. “Americans will turn to the upcoming election to end the border crisis,” Barrasso said. (Translation: we’re not giving up a potent campaign issue just to alleviate the crisis at the border).
One doubts that Trump read or was even briefed extensively on a summary of the bill. His calculus would have simply been, is a border bill good or not good for me? It was not only a crass political decision, it was also an exquisitely dumb decision as well. Biden did hand the Republicans a potent campaign issue by doddering so long before pressing for action on the border. And when a non-partisan, reasonable bill was finally drafted, much, if not most, of the credit belonged to Republicans who could have pocketed credit for a good border bill because it would have only passed with their support. But Donald Trump wants to campaign that we have taken no action to protect the border, even though he promised to produce a border bill in 2016 but never delivered.
The now-defunct border bill resulted from months of serious, good-faith negotiations by Democrats and Republicans. It would have represented a fine example of what can be accomplished when Democrats and Republicans work together to alleviate, if not eliminate, a serious problem. And that was a problem for Donald Trump and his congressional sycophants. He and they want the border problem to fester. Why fix a problem in February when I can campaign on it until November, he and they reasoned.
Out of 50 Republicans in the US Senate, only Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Mitt Romney (Utah) and James Lankford (Oklahoma) voted for the bill. They are, pretty much, what remains of the Republican Party as a once great American political party. Today, the Republican Party is simply the Party of “No,” unless Trump gives the Party faithful permission to vote “Yes.”
Senator Lankford, who led the Republican effort to produce a good border bill, says he was told that this election year was the wrong time to solve the border problem. One right-wing news commentator said to him that if he moved to solve the border problem in an election year, he (the commentator) would destroy him.
There was, however, a lot to applaud in the bill. It provided funding to interdict fentanyl and human trafficking. There was $60 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel, and the bill had the support of the United States Chamber of Commerce and the Wall Street Journal editorial board, as well as the support of the National Border Control Council, which represents an estimated 18,000 border patrol agents.
But Donald Trump wasn’t going to sit still for having the first major border bill in generations enacted on Joe Biden’s watch. Small wonder then that House Speaker and Trump sycophant Mike Johnson made it clear that a Senate-produced bill would be dead on arrival even before he knew what the final bill would look like.
Was the Senate bill perfect? No. But it was a good bill resulting from a serious bi-partisan effort to begin addressing the problem at the border. The Senate bill was a good start.
The bill included a statistical trip wire whereby a set number of illegal crossing attempts would require all political asylum seekers to present themselves at official ports of entry where they would be required to schedule appointments. Furthermore, political asylum applicants would have had to prove they could not have found relief from persecution or other danger by simply moving to another part of their native country.
Today, migrants can seek political asylum regardless of how they entered the United States. Now, I believe genuinely legitimate asylum seekers who are, in effect, innocent people running for their lives should be able to seek asylum however they can reach our shores. But that’s just my opinion.
Other aspects of the bill make sense to me. For example, those Afghans who had helped US forces in Afghanistan and escaped to the United States when we left, and the Taliban returned have been living in limbo for the past three years. The Senate bill would have provided a pathway to citizenship. That’s gone now.
Also, children brought to the United States legally when their parents were visiting with proper visas (so-called documented Dreamers) would have been allowed to be included in their parents’ green card applications once they turned twenty-one. Also, unaccompanied minors under age 13 would have received financial assistance to fund legal representation in immigration court.
Republican Senator Mitt Romney said the bill was killed simply to give Trump a campaign issue for the 2024 Presidential campaign. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia agrees. Manchin touted Senator Lankford, calling him “one of the most sincere conservatives you’re ever going to meet…This is good for our country,” he continued. “Start putting your country before yourself. Quit worrying about being a Democrat or Republican and getting reelected. If you have to do “this to get reelected, then you shouldn’t want to serve.”
The Senate bill, however, contained what Trump and the House Republicans could claim was a poison pill that made the bill unacceptable. Under the Senate bill, the border would be mandatorily closed only if the seven-day average of inadmissible migrants crossing the border exceeded 5,000 per day. In other words, the administration would have the discretion to catch and release into the country up to 5,000 inadmissible migrants per day — almost 2 million per year. Closing the border would be discretionary unless the seven-day average was above 5,000 per day. While that threshold could have been negotiated, it provided an excuse for killing the bill.
That was all Trump needed to direct House Republicans to kill the bill and kill it they did.
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Novels by Hal Gershowitz
I find your whole argument disingenuous. We don’t need a new immigration bill, which was attached to more foreign war money, especially in an election year. (500,000 Ukrainians are dead. How many more do you want killed? Because that’s what our money is doing killing people) if we stop, the money, a peace agreement will be reached. If we keep sending money, the war will continue and more will die.
Biden just needs to go back to what Trump had put in place while he was in office.
Trump severely slowed down the flow of illegal immigrants into this country.
For three years now I’ve been hearing from Mayorkas, and the “border zar” Kamala Harris, there is no border problem, they claimed that the border was secure! Which was a lie all along. Then in the last couple months all of a sudden there is a border problem. And somehow Biden is going to run on the fact that it’s Trump’s fault. Hilarious.
Also, waiting to the very last sentence to state what was wrong with the bill….I don’t know Hal, were you hoping people wouldn’t read all the way through? Your argument would’ve had more credibility if you put the problem right at the top, and then tried to convince us that allowing 2 million people a year in is somehow better than what we have now. But you couldn’t because Your initial argument, doesn’t work with the 2 million can still come in fact.
The average American no longer has to depend on multi national corporate news (globalists news) )that you keep referencing. And they have eyes in their heads and they can see what’s happening around them. They know how much better they had it with Trump. Most Americans don’t have money in the stock market per se, so they don’t see this wonderful economy that Biden has “ built back better” They see their resources being drained to illegal immigrants, and foreign wars. while too many Americans don’t have a place to put their head at night. And those that do don’t feel safe in their homes.
New York is giving $53 million in vouchers to illegals, which means Trump could even win New York. People are waking up, their interests are not being served. So let’s have a fair and honest election, and let the people decide. America First.
Was rotten from the start