GOP Votes Against What It Wants

Yesterday, Senate Republicans did as expected, followed Donald Trump’s bidding, and killed an immigration bill that gave them most of what they wanted.

They did that because, far from wanting to resolve what they label a crisis, they want to preserve it as a campaign issue for the fall. On cue, they accused Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of bringing the bill up at all, knowing it would fail. They charge that he did it for political reasons, to show that the Democrats are trying to solve the problem while Republicans will vote against tough measures they say they want.

Of course Schumer did exactly that — and good for him. I doubt that most of the public is paying close attention to these kinds of details, especially on the eve of a holiday weekend, but Schumer has every right to highlight the parties’ differences on how to approach immigration. The Democrats are serious and willing to upset their own constituencies to get some of what they want and reach a compromise. The Republicans, even when they get almost all of what they want, will vote against the bill and watch the problems get worse in order to win an election.

Let’s hope this backfires on them. Democrats will use this vote in attack ads this summer and fall, as well they should. In fact, I’m a little nervous that my party is overplaying the abortion issue. Maybe they should lean more heavily on immigration now that Republicans have given them the fodder.

One thing that gets lost in news stories about all this is what’s actually in the bill. It was painstakingly negotiated over ten weeks between Senators from both sides of the aisle and introduced in January. It was alive for all of about a day or two before Trump blasted it, for all intents and purposes killing it. But, according to an analysis from the Atlantic Council, here’s what it would have done.

These are the budget items:

• Provided a significant increase of approximately a hundred immigration judge teams and an increase in the number of asylum officers. These would have begun to process cases for newly arriving migrants who otherwise would have had to wait years for an available immigration judge to hear their legal claims.
• ICE would get more than three times the amount Biden had requested in his budget, with the additional funding going to increase the number of personnel, increase detention space to 46,500 beds, and increase the number of removal flights to return migrants whose claims are denied. To fully unlock the full appropriation, ICE would need to report to Congress that it has increased detention space and the number of removal flights.
• The Immigration Service would get substantially more than initially requested to increase the number of asylum officers who, under the new rules made possible by the compromise, could make decisions in most asylum cases.
• Provided $1.4 billion for shelter and services for migrants awaiting a decision—which, under the new policy changes, should take six months rather than five to seven years.
• Provided funding to increase the capacity of Latin American countries to receive returning migrants whose claims were denied.

The policy changes in the bipartisan Senate version were compromises intended to bring on both Republican and Democratic support:

• No longer would there have been a low bar that allows most asylum applicants to stay in the United States for years while waiting for an immigration judge to hear their case.
• Instead, thousands of asylum officers would have made faster decisions on most asylum cases, ideally within six months, without waiting years for the case to be reviewed by an immigration judge. All asylum applicants would have undergone thorough security vetting. Each applicant would need to prove to the asylum officer by “clear and convincing evidence” that they qualify for asylum. The expectation, based on experience, was that most applicants would not qualify for asylum, but those who are found eligible would get immediate work authorization so they can support themselves.
• Asylum applicants would get the right to counsel, but at their own expense. Children and those deemed incompetent would be eligible for government-provided counsel.
• There was a limited appeal option for applicants whose requests were denied, but most cases would not have to be heard by courts. Those found not eligible for asylum would have been removed from the United States. ICE would have had significantly greater resources to carry out removals of those who did not qualify for asylum protection under the Convention Against Torture or other US laws.
• If the number of inadmissible migrants exceeded 8,500 in a single day, or five thousand a day over a seven-day period, the bill would have required the Secretary of Homeland Security to “close” the border to asylum claims. Migrants could still claim protection under other US laws, such as the Convention Against Torture, but the standard of proof for such claims is higher and very few migrants qualify for it. Based on current levels of migrants arriving at the southwest border, the border would have been “closed” to asylum claims for most of the past four months, according to those involved in the negotiations.
• Afghan allies resettled in the United States after the August 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan would have been allowed to stay and become permanent residents after they passed security vetting.
• The bill would have required additional training for Border Patrol officers, improvements in ICE’s “alternatives to detention” program, and upgrades to technology at CBP and USCIS.
• USCIS and ICE would get streamlined hiring authorities to hire the thousands of new officers and agents required to implement the bill.

Those are the details. Here’s the Atlantic Council’s analysis of the politics:

The bipartisan Senate bill went a long way toward addressing long-time Republican concerns. If the bill had been passed and implemented (and funded) in subsequent years, it would have significantly reduced the use of “catch and release” because those migrants who qualified for asylum would get a much faster determination and be eligible for work more quickly. Those not eligible would have been removed from the United States much more quickly than at present.

For Democrats, the compromise bill did not address important issues like adults who came to the United States as children without authorization—called Dreamers, from the proposed Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. Many Democrats also objected to the new asylum restrictions. However, for Democrats and migration advocates, the bipartisan Senate compromise promised faster determination of asylees’ eligibility and additional resources, including faster work authorization, to integrate those eligible into US society. This represented a significant improvement over the present situation, in which cities are being overwhelmed by needing to support those awaiting their court dates.

So it’s fair to say that this bill leaned heavily toward Republican priorities while providing just enough for Democrats to get the votes needed to move the bill forward. And yet Republicans rejected it. It’s fair for voters to ask which party is serious about getting a handle on the immigration issue and it’s fair for the Democrats to make the case that it’s not the GOP.

It’s the Memorial Day weekend. I’ll be at a wedding in Chicago, but I’ll take a moment to remember my father, who was a paratrooper training to invade the home islands of Japan before World War II was ended by other means. We’ll see you back here Tuesday.