Immigration reform goes down. Again.
I can’t say that I held out much hope for it but it’s still a big disappointment. It’s clear that the Republicans want the issue more than a solution. The people gathering at the border in anticipation of the reversal of Title 42 which allows police and border officers to expedite the expulsion of illegal immigrants, are providing some vivid pictures for all the wingnuts so a chance to give million dreamers a path to citizenship and shore up the asylum system with more funding and clearer rules is gone.
For a fleeting moment this month, a deal to protect 2 million “dreamers” and rationalize our asylum system appeared within reach. Two senators with a history of bipartisan compromises were earnestly haggling over details. Much of the bill text was written. The talks were endorsed by influential right-leaning opinion-makers, and even encouraged by the conservative Border Patrol union.
It’s dead. No hope.
What happened? Tillis and Sinema were negotiating over bill text, much of which had been written, as late as Wednesday night. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) informed Sinema and Tillis that he wouldn’t allow it to be attached to the end-of-year spending omnibus bill, effectively killing it, one of the sources tells me.
Some last-minute sticking points also arose. Some of them concerned detention issues, as well as the framework’s effort to retain temporary restrictions that barred most migrants from applying for asylum at all. The latter would have replicated the ban under the Title 42 covid-19 health rule, which a court has halted, creating expectations of a spike in efforts to cross the border.
The framework would have created new processing centers that would detain incoming asylum seekers — with increased legal and health services — until screenings could determine whether they have a “credible fear” of persecution if they were returned home. Those who passed would get a final hearing much faster than under the status quo, due to major investments in legal processing. Those who failed would be expelled promptly.
All this was designed to disincentivize exactly what Republicans rail about: migrants who seek asylum in hopes of disappearing into the interior and not showing up for hearings. The framework would have effectively continued the Title 42 ban on most asylum applications for at least a year, until the new system was operational.
But there was disagreement over whether migrants who enter the country between ports of entry should receive much more draconian treatment, such as longer detention or immediate expulsion, than under the current framework, the sources say.
What’s more, how open-ended the Title 42-type ban should be remained unresolved. For Democrats, that uncertainty raises the risk of the ban continuing indefinitely, or at least for many years, which would largely close down our asylum system and renege on international and human rights commitments.
What’s deeply frustrating about this moment is that the fundamental principles underlying reform were real and workable. Many Republicans recognize the absurdity of banishing the dreamers — who are culturally American and often know little of their countries of origin — to legal shadows where they are constrained from contributing to our country in keeping with their full potential.
And on asylum, these reforms represented a good-faith effort to come up with a solution that both sides could accept. It seeks to discourage the sort of abuses of the system that Republicans constantly decry as a “crisis” and a betrayal of the rule of law, while retaining fealty to our core commitment to provide a fair hearing to all who seek refuge here.
For some Republicans, particularly in the Donald Trump era, the only real “solution” to these problems is to reduce the number of immigrants accepted to as low a number as possible, regardless of the human rights consequences. So they won’t support such a compromise by definition.
Others probably see little political incentive in doing so. Our infrastructure is set to come under more strain once Title 42 is lifted, and contributing to solving the problem would provide less political payoff to Republicans than keeping the “border crisis” issue to wield against President Biden and Democrats in 2024.
On the Democratic side, a few opposed this compromise because it would in some fashion stiffen enforcement in inhumane ways. They were right to raise this objection. Yet the compromise offered a real shot at making life more humane for well over 2 million people. It could have demonstrated that government can manage asylum-seeking effectively while remaining true to our core values, potentially opening political space for widening channels to more legal migration later.
Get ready. This thing is going to dominate the political conversation for months. With tons of jobs available and continuing political unrest in Central and South America as well as the fact that the rules are about to change has led to a major influx of undocumented workers. Here’s the latest from California, where political leaders aren’t just cynical xenophobes:
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California warned Monday that President Biden’s plan to reverse former President Donald Trump’s border policies could “break” his state. Newsom, speaking to ABC News on Monday, said, “The fact is, what we’ve got right now is not working and is about to break in a post-42 world unless we take some responsibility and ownership.”
“I’m saying that as a father,” the governor added. “I’m saying that as someone that feels responsible for being part of the solution and I’m trying to do my best here.”
Newsom claimed the U.S. government is sending “more and more” migrants to California because the state is “taking care of folks.” “The more we do, the burden is placed disproportionate on us,” he said.
“We’re already at capacity at nine of our sites,” Newsom continued. “We can’t continue to fund all of these sites because of the budgetary pressures now being placed on this state and the offsetting issues that I have to address.… The reality is, unless we’re doing what we’re doing, people will end up on the streets.
Newsom’s comments come as a surprise after years of championing policies to accommodate and expand protections to illegal migrants entering California.
“On Day One of his administration, President Biden put forward a comprehensive plan focused on securing our border, ensuring Dreamers have a permanent home in our country, and helping businesses address their needs for more workers,” the governor’s office said in a statement to Fox News Digital, quoting Newsom’s comments from visiting the border on Dec. 12. The governor went on to claim that Republicans were disingenuous in their calls for tightened border security and immigration reform, accusing them of simply playing politics on the issue.
They want the issue and it looks like they are going to get it. I guess one possible temporary solution might come from the Federal Reserve which seems to be determine to create a hard landing and spike unemployment. Great.
That Sinema/Tillis plan was a good one. Progressives may have objected to some of the provisions but they were negotiating in good faith. But there isn’t more than a handful of Republicans, certainly not enough to break the filibuster, who would even talk about it. They love “the caravan.”
And, by the way, this issue helps Trump much more than DeSantis. It’s the backbone of his pitch and has been from the beginning. DeSantis had to go and find some immigrants in Texas to pull his stunt.
I’m dreading this …
Happy Hollandaise everyone! If you’d like to throw a little something in the old Hullabaloo stocking, it would be most appreciated.