The Republican Congress’ complete subservience to the White House is nowhere more evident than on immigration. There are clear, overwhelming majorities in both houses for a narrowly focused bill to legalize the “dreamers” and to strengthen border security. A bill of that type, however, almost certainly will not get an up-or-down vote in both houses. So what’s the problem?
“Paul Ryan has said many times that he is sympathetic to the dreamers. He doesn’t think they should be deported. They came here at young minors, only know the United States as home,” Politico’s Rachael Bade observed on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
When it comes to moments of truth, however, Ryan is a captive of the anti-immigration right. Republicans refused to bring the Gang of Eight bill to the floor in 2013. Ryan now seems determined not to put on the floor a fix for a widely popular effort to legalize young undocumented immigrants after President Donald Trump pulled the plug on the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. In this he bows to the far-right Freedom Caucus and the White House’s most virulent anti-immigrant voice, senior policy adviser Stephen Miller. (I would add that there is nothing “conservative” about the throwing out hard-working Americans who were brought here through no fault of their own.) The formula — legalize dreamers for more border security — is a specific, attainable object if it remains about the dreamers and border security.
Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., has such a narrowly focused bill. But in the path of success stands Ryan. “This is the only bill that would have 218 votes on the House floor. We feel very confident about that,” Aguilar said on “Face the Nation.” “We have had numbers of discussions with our colleagues. But this is the type of bipartisan approach that the American public wants to see. And it’s important that, if we’re going to fix this DACA issue and have border security, this is the type of narrow focus that can get 218 votes and can get to the president’s desk.” So if there is no DACA fix because a bill of this type never gets a vote, the blame falls squarely on Ryan.
The White House proposal last week was straight from the anti-immigrants’ playbook. With DACA nearly an afterthought, the main thrust was to dramatically reduce immigration, specifically targeting those who come for family reunification or through the lottery system, which has always been the not-so-hidden agenda of far-right anti-immigration groups. “Chain migration” — that is, family unification (funny how the party of family values is allergic to using the word “family” in this case) — is another red herring, an excuse to try to depress legal immigration, especially of nonwhites. Politico Magazine reports:
“This is because each link in the chain takes years — and sometimes decades — to complete. Bluntly put, America isn’t being overrun by Chinese- and Mexican-born grandmas....
“Back in the late ’80s, the waiting list for a typical family visa was six to 12 years, depending on the country. Now those waiting lists are much longer. It takes five years for your Chinese spouse to become a U.S. citizen and petition for his sister. The family visa system is badly backlogged; the U.S. is currently processing sibling visa requests for China that were filed in 2004, making the total wait for a visa just shy of two decades. For Mexico and the Philippines, the total wait now exceeds 25 years.
“Chain migration, put another way, is a myth — it takes too long for a chain to form.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C., appearing on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, called out the White House ploy: “We’re not going (to) cut legal immigration in half and give all the green cards to the high-tech sector of the economy, we’re going to have green cards for the entire economy.” He continued, “We’re going to have a diverse nation. We’re not going to limit people coming in the country from Norway or Europe. They’re going to come from all over the world, based on merit. And we’re going to have people who are diverse and skillsets that are diverse. That’s a winning combination.”
The moderate gang of 30 (or so) working on the bill will have difficulty reaching agreement. However, they’ll never get there by taking the president’s bait to make this into a catch-all bill. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., one of the moderates looking for a deal, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “We’ve got to decide do we go large, do we go medium or do we go small? In 2013 we went large. The Senate passed comprehensive immigration.” That, however, went nowhere despite a $42B commitment to border security. “So we’ve been down that road. That was large.” In other words, if they want to if they want to fix DACA, they should fix DACA. Period. At least in the Senate, Democrats believe they have a commitment to put a bill on the floor.
The House, however, remains the problem. Ryan does not see his job as working for consensus in the country, nor in protecting the prerogatives of the Congress. He sees himself as Trump’s defender and agent, guiding the Freedom Caucus (which is a minority of the GOP caucus) to victory, or to non-consideration of controversial issues that might embarrass its members. It’s an odd role for the speaker, to prevent consensus and block legislation favored by a majority of his body and the vast majority of the country, but he pursues it with a vengeance. The Constitution, the dreamers and the American people will be the losers if he repeats Republicans’ 2013 performance.
Jennifer Rubin | The Washington Post