Democrats Scale Back on Immigration as GOP Digs In Heels
Democrats Scale Back Immigration Ambitions as GOP Digs In Heels
(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. House is set to vote Thursday on two immigration bills that would provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of people living in the U.S. without legal status, as Democrats’ plans for more ambitious legislation are evaporating with the surge of migrants arriving at the border with Mexico.
The two bills -- which address the fates of farm workers and young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers -- reflect a decision by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to adopt a piecemeal approach to immigration amid a dearth of support for a more sweeping proposal from President Joe Biden.
While both measures are expected to clear the Democrat-led House, the prospects of even these narrowly tailored bills are in question in the Senate that is split 50-50 between the two political parties. Republicans in both chambers are taking a harder line as the Biden administration struggles with waves unaccompanied minors and others seeking entry to the U.S. There was a 28% jump in the number of people who tried to illegally cross the border in February compared with January.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday said the Biden administration is refusing the acknowledge the severity of a situation that caused it to call the Federal Emergency Management Agency into action and that could be bringing Covid-positive migrants into the U.S. He mocked the House for taking votes on legislation that doesn’t address it.
“Are they leaping into action to repair the crisis?” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “No — they’re taking up an amnesty plan that would create a special new pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants working in certain industries.”
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said the Democratic bill do nothing to address the current situation at the border.
GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who co-sponsored the Senate’s version of the so-called Dream Act with Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, on Wednesday said he sees no path to bipartisan solutions on any immigration legislation until the migrant surge is addressed. He said the administration is “creating chaos where there was order” when it began reversing Trump’s tougher policies.
Graham heightened his rhetoric Thursday, calling for newly installed Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to resign if order isn’t restored. He said in a statement that under the administration’s current leadership “it doesn’t have either the will or capability to fix the problem.”
In testimony to a House panel Wednesday, Mayorkas refused to concede that the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border amounts to a crisis and said get-tough policies of President Donald Trump precipitated the problem. He told members of the House Homeland Security Committee that it can’t be resolved overnight, “due in large part to the damage done over the last four years.”
Mayorkas added that the Trump administration had left behind an inhumane and inadequate system that his department is working swiftly to revamp.
”The children who were separated from their parents under the Trump administration are the subject of an intense effort in an all-of government effort, directed by President Biden, to find the parents and reunite the families and restore our nation to its core principals and values,” Mayorkas said.
Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and is the Senate Democratic whip, said this week that Biden’s comprehensive immigration plan, including a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., clearly lacks support to move through Congress this year or next as Republican opposition mounts. He also said even the piecemeal measures the House will consider are in doubt in the Senate, particularly if Republicans like Graham want politically fraught changes to asylum policy as well.
The first of the two bills that will come before the House would help more than 2 million people now in the nation illegally. It would give conditional green cards and work authorizations -- and a path to citizenship -- to young Dreamer immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children and meet criteria similar to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program established by President Barack Obama. It also would provide similar help to current recipients of immigration programs for foreign nationals whose home countries are unsafe because of an armed conflict or natural disaster.
The second bill would provide temporary status for certain agricultural workers and also would create a pathway for workers to get a green card by paying a $1,000 fine and engaging in additional agricultural work, depending on how long they’ve had jobs on U.S. farms. It also would streamline the process of getting a temporary visa for farm work, and require electronic employment verification.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the two bills only address part of the immigration problem, and that “we need to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and we’re going to do so in the coming months.” Still, moving with broader proposals could force Democrats from moderate districts to take tough votes before the 2022 midterm elections.
Some Republicans supported previous versions of both measures. But the office of House Minority Whip Steve Scalise sent out a notice Tuesday night recommending that fellow Republicans oppose the Dream Act. The notice cited the increase of migrants along the U.S.-Mexican border as among the reasons.
“The surge at the border is a direct result of the Biden administration’s open borders policy and lax enforcement of our immigration laws,” the notice read. “By failing to include enforcement provisions to deal with the tide of illegal immigration or provisions to address the humanitarian crisis at the border, the bill would only worsen the flow of illegal immigrates to the U.S.”
McCarthy, a California Republican, led a delegation of a dozen GOP House lawmakers to Texas on Monday to survey an overcrowded detention center. Texas GOP Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz are planning to lead a trip of their own on Friday.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.