The House tried a slick election tactic with the second Republican immigration bill. Conservatives could say they voted against it, and those in less conservative states could say they did not. The GOP leaders did not expect what happened, though.
Donald Trump pled for his party to pass this bill, because he did not want to come across as weak on immigration. Still, fewer Republicans voted for the bill than anticipated. It failed 121-301 votes.
The GOP’s first immigration bill failed along a more hard-line divide, 193-231. Two Republicans did not even cast a vote for the second bill
The more moderate bill would have given $25 billion to POTUS for his border wall. It would have also cut legal immigration as a trade-off for undocumented young people and DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program).
In addition, the bill would have streamlined the asylum requests, so that families could stay together. This came after the blowback from Trump’s Zero Tolerance policy of separating babies, toddlers, and children from their parents.
The president’s policy sent the parents to court and the children to black sites. That meant that the locations were hidden from and inaccessible to the Red Cross, journalists, and even the U.S. Congress.
Not one Democrat supported the president’s favored bill. Then again, the House Republican leadership blocked not only Democrats from the process, but also moderate Republicans who might have used the rare parliamentary tool, a discharge petition, to do so.
Republicans have been trying provide a bill that Trump would sign. Of course, it is always hard to hit a moving target.
First, the former leader of the free world wanted to fix the family separation problem, because it made him look bad to the rest of the world. Then, he flipped with this shouting tweet:
‘HOUSE REPUBLICANS SHOULD PASS THE STRONG BUT FAIR IMMIGRATION BILL, KNOWN AS GOODLATTE II, IN THEIR AFTERNOON VOTE TODAY, EVEN THOUGH THE DEMS WON’T LET IT PASS IN THE SENATE. PASSAGE WILL SHOW THAT WE WANT STRONG BORDERS & SECURITY WHILE THE DEMS WANT OPEN BORDERS = CRIME. WIN!’
Republican on the right feared their base would rebel against President Barack Obama’s DACA program. Moderates did not like reducing family-based legal immigration or chain migration. Ironically, First Lady Melania Trump’s parents have been seeking citizenship on that very basis.
A group of senators created a negotiation team led by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Ted Cruz (R-TX).
Democrats in Congress pointed out that the humanitarian crisis started in the White House. They suggested that if 45 wanted to fix it, he could easily.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
‘The president created this problem. The quickest way to solve it is administratively.’
Trump initially gave Congress a March 5 deadline to come up with a legislative DACA. Now, the program will have to be settled either in the courts or maybe in the next Congress.
The Senate failed to pass several bills addressing DACA and border security earlier this year.
Featured Image via Getty Images/John Moore.
