"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
“Take away a deadline, and Congress will simply lose its focus on any issue — even the heated debate around immigration.
At Tuesday morning’s House Republican briefing, just one of the five GOP leaders made a reference to the issue, and it was a passing one — a proposal meant mostly to placate conservatives, not a real solution that could get signed into law.
Across the Capitol, a few hours later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and four senior Republicans did their weekly briefing. Topics ranged from gun background checks to the Winter Olympics. There was no immigration talk at all.
The four Senate Democrats who followed McConnell also made no mention of the looming Monday deadline to resolve the fate of 800,000 undocumented immigrants who have been shielded from the threat of deportation under an expiring executive order.
It’s understandable that most of the attention has shifted toward the fallout of the Valentine’s Day massacre of 17 students and faculty at a Florida high school, with the media intensely focused on gun laws and school violence.
Capitol Police remove a banner as members of the Catholic community and supporters of DACA recipients are arrested during a protest on Capitol Hill this week. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
All but one of the 17 questions fielded by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), at their separate press briefings, related in some way to the Parkland, Fla., shootings. The lone outlier focused on the memorial service for the Rev. Billy Graham.
This was supposed to be the week when Congress would force itself to resolve the dispute over the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order, which President Trump announced in September he would revoke on March 5, giving Congress a six-month window to resolve the issue.
It was, in some ways, a masterful idea by the Trump West Wing, living up to his tough talk on immigration during the presidential campaign in 2016 but also foisting the issue into the laps of lawmakers.
But now, amid legislative and judicial gridlock, lawmakers and the media have moved on to other topics. First, the Senate failed two weeks ago to approve any compromise. Then, the Supreme Court declared it would not wade into the legal challenges to the DACA program until it plays out in lower federal court rulings — a legal process with no obvious end date in sight.
“We would be well advised to continue our work on it, but it seems to me that a lot of the air is out of the balloon here in the Capitol, and people don’t sense its urgency,” said Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), the Republican whip who had been leading bipartisan talks.
Cornyn’s lead negotiating partner, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the Democratic whip, has declared helping the “dreamers,” as the undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children are known, an urgent, moral mandate. But even he understands why the issue has fallen off the radar.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) flanked by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), left, and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.), speaks with reporters this week about school safety measures in response to the Parkland, Fla., massacre that left 17 dead. The Republicans made no mention of immigration reform. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
“Along comes this tragedy, in the high school in Parkland, Florida, and the response of the young people and the national response of the subject, it blows away all other conversations about DACA and the Dream Act, North Korean nuclear threats,” Durbin said.
He and Cornyn have not held any serious immigration talks in weeks, he said — and he added that the same is true for a separate bipartisan group of centrist senators. And none are on tap.
“We talk but at this point we don’t have a plan,” he said.
Just like that, in the span of a few days — Senate gridlock, a madman’s bullets killing children and a judicial ruling — and the issue that consumed Washington for most of December, January and February is no longer worth a mention at a leadership news conference.
That’s not to say the issue has subsided from the political debate. Activists are trying to keep the pressure on Trump and Congress, with a rally planned for Sunday in Washington to draw attention to Monday’s DACA deadline that is set to pass without much fanfare.
In southwestern Pennsylvania, Republicans are furiously trying to stave off an embarrassing loss in a special election to fill a vacant House seat. The district tilted toward Trump by nearly 20 percentage points in 2016, a year in which Democrats did not even field a candidate against the longtime Republican incumbent, Tim Murphy, who resigned amid a scandal late last year.
Now, to halt the momentum for Democrat Conor Lamb, a GOP super PAC called the Congressional Leadership Fund has unleashed a new adthat ties Lamb to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her hometown San Francisco’s status as a “sanctuary city” for people in the country illegally.
“Conor Lamb wants to help Nancy Pelosi give amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants,” the narrator says. “Sanctuary cities and amnesty for illegals. Conor Lamb is a Pelosi liberal.”
Lamb, 33, a former assistant U.S. attorney, does support a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, but he has stated that he will not vote for Pelosi as speaker. That position was highlighted in a new ad he is running that calls for new leadership in both parties.
Clearly, Republicans believe the issue still has resonance with their conservative base voters, especially if it is mixed in with images of Pelosi. And Lamb seems to be aware of the threat.
But Republicans could face their own political dilemma if the federal courts rule that DACA was illegal, which would effectively reinstate Trump’s order and revoke protections from those 800,000 people. Deportations could begin quickly.
“I don’t believe that Senator McConnell and the Republicans want to see too many people deported out of Nevada and Arizona in the weeks and months ahead,” Durbin said.
He named two southwestern states with large dreamer populations where Republicans are trying to defend two Senate seats that could flip control of the Senate in the November midterm elections.
Republicans are well aware of the potential for a court ruling at any time.
“I’ve been working in and around courts long enough to know things can turn on a dime,” said Cornyn, who served as Texas attorney general, and on the state Supreme Court, before winning his Senate seat 15 years ago.
That said, Cornyn remains less than optimistic about congressional action until that court order arrives and forces action. Stating the obvious, he said: “We don’t do things around here unless there is a deadline.”
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Given the ugliness surrounding the farcical “debate” about Dreamers in the Senate and pressure exerted by the White Nationalists/Bakuninists in the House, perhaps it’s just as well that Dreamers are “forgotten” for now.
My prediction: It will take “regime change” — however long that might take — to solve the “Dreamers’ dilemma” on a long-term basis. In the meantime, I think that their status and fate will be tied up in the courts for a long, long time — wasteful, but an unfortunate fact of life when we have “Gonzo Government” elected by a minority of voters.
Trump and the GOP aren’t going to help the Dreamers. While the majority of GOP voters are favorably disposed to Dreamers, it isn’t a priority for them. Unlike the Dems, GOP legislators aren’t getting pressure from their constituents to solve the Dreamer problem. Meanwhile, “the base” doesn’t like the Dreamers. Without Trump’s support, the GOP isn’t going to press the issue. With Trump’s active opposition and veto threats, the Dreamers are “dead meat” as far as the GOP is concerned.
The Democrats can’t help the Dreamers from their minority position. The minority doesn’t get to control the agenda, particularly over the President’s active opposition. No, it doesn’t make sense to blame Schumer for sacrificing “leverage” he never really had. The shutdown didn’t work. The Dems and the Dreamers were losing the public opinion battle. Since the GOP is basically out to destroy Government (other than the military) they didn’t feel much pressure to make concessions to the minority to get it reopened.
The Dreamers aren’t going anywhere. It’s a tossup whether the Supremes will intervene in Trump’s favor in the Dreamer case. We will probably find out within the next week. Even if the Supremes do Trump’s bidding, there is no way Trump can deport 700,000 Dreamers. Unlike the semi-helpless women and children detained at the border that Trump & Sessions like to pick on, the Dreamers have resources, community support, and access to good lawyers. They have lots of possible defenses to removal and some affirmative causes of action that should keep the legal system occupied for decades, or at least until we get regime change and wiser legislators finally put the Dreamers on the path to citizenship.
“White House goes all out to stop bipartisan immigration deal
By Tal Kopan, CNN
The Trump administration is working Thursday to kill a bipartisan deal on immigration that could be the best chance to get a bill through the Senate.
The White House is “actively considering issuing a veto threat” against the bipartisan immigration bill Thursday morning, a senior administration official said.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions derided the legislation in remarks to a national sheriff’s association.
“This is open borders and mass amnesty and the opposite of what the American people support,” Sessions claimed about the bill, according to prepared remarks. “This amendment — plain as day — will invite a mad rush of illegality across our borders.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is also making calls to lawmakers to urge them to reject the bill, or potentially even revoke their sponsorship of it, according to an administration official.
And in a statement released late Wednesday night, the Department of Homeland Security had tough words for the plan, calling it “the end of immigration enforcement in America.”
The legislation from a group of 16 bipartisan senators would offer nearly 2 million young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children before 2012 a path to citizenship over 10 to 12 years.
The plan would also place $25 billion in a guarded trust for border security, would cut a small number of green cards each year for adult children of current green card holders, and would prevent parents from being sponsored for citizenship by their US citizen children if that child gained citizenship through the pathway created in the bill or if they brought the child to the US illegally.
The administration statements riled up co-sponsors of the bill, who said the White House and allies have “lost credibility” by criticizing a bipartisan agreement.
“With their press release this morning, it seems as if DHS is intent on acting less like a partner and more like an adversary,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina. “Instead of offering thoughts and advice — or even constructive criticism — they are acting more like a political organization intent on poisoning the well. From the tone of this morning’s document, it appears as if DHS hopes all border security proposals fail. That would be the worst outcome of all.”
One provision the Department of Homeland Security particularly objected to would direct it to focus its arrests and deportations on criminals and newly arrived immigrants. The Trump administration has virtually removed all prioritization of arresting and deporting immigrants. It has targeted individuals with final deportation orders, some years and decades old, drawing criticism for deporting longtime members of communities with US citizen families.
“The Schumer-Rounds-Collins proposal destroys the ability of the men and women from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to remove millions of illegal aliens,” DHS said in a statement. “It would be the end of immigration enforcement in America and only serve to draw millions more illegal aliens with no way to remove them.
“The changes proposed by Senators Schumer-Rounds-Collins would effectively make the United States a Sanctuary Nation where ignoring the rule of law is encouraged,” the agency added.
President Donald Trump has backed a plan to give 1.8 million undocumented people who came to the US as children citizenship with $25 billion in border security, host of hardline enforcement power requests, substantially cutting family-based migration and ending the diversity visa lottery.
DHS called the bipartisan proposal an “egregious violation” of what the President has wanted.
The White House proposal has been introduced by Republican senators and is expected to be well below the 60 votes needed to advance.
Both proposals are expected to get a vote in the Senate on Thursday.”
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Hang tough, Dems! Don’t sell out to outrageous lies, racism, and xenophobia!
THE BIG IDEA: Democrats are so eager to shield young foreign-born “dreamers” from deportation that they’re now offering to make compromises that would have been hard to imagine a year ago. Republicans, who feel like they have them over the barrel, are demanding more.
Showing his pragmatic side, for instance, Bernie Sanders says he’s willing to pony up big for border security if that’s what it takes. “I would go much further than I think is right,” the Vermont senator said in an interview Tuesday afternoon. “Unwillingly. Unhappily. I think it’s a stupid thing to do. But we have to protect the dreamers. … I’m willing to make some painful concessions.”
Sanders said a wall is still a “totally absurd idea” and that there are better ways to secure the border with Mexico, but he also emphasized that there will be “a horrible moral stain” on the country if President Trump goes through with his order to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program next month.
— Anti-immigration hardliners are staking out a firm position because most of them are not actually concerned about the plight of the dreamers. They have never thought these young people, whose undocumented parents brought them to the United States as children, should be here anyway. They agitated for Trump to end the program.
This means they’ll be fine if no bill passes, and they know that gives them way more leverage to demand wholesale changes to the entire legal immigration system. “The president’s framework bill is not an opening bid for negotiations. It’s a best and final offer,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who has emerged as the leader of this group in the Senate. He made this comment yesterday on “Fox and Friends,” knowing the president watches. Sure enough, Trump echoed the same talking point on Twitter, calling this the “last chance” for action.
— Mitch McConnell wants to use this week’s immigration debate to force show votes that can be used to embarrass vulnerable Democratic senators from red states. For example, the majority leader introduced a measure yesterday that would penalize so-called sanctuary cities for not cooperating with federal immigration laws. This issue tests well in polls and focus groups in most of the 10 states Trump carried in 2016 where a Democrat is now up for reelection. GOP insiders on the Hill say that McConnell is mainly focused on doing whatever it takes to protect his majority now that 2018 has arrived, and he has a narrower majority after the loss in Alabama.
— Democrats stuck together to block the Senate from taking up the poison pill on sanctuary cities, but the fact that the debate has so quickly devolved into a fight over process offered another data point – if for some reason you needed one – of how dysfunctional the Senate has become.
Trump urges senators to back his immigration proposal
— “Most Republicans on Tuesday appeared to be rallying behind a proposal by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and six other GOP senators that fulfills Trump’s calls to legalize 1.8 million dreamers, immediately authorizes spending at least $25 billion to bolster defenses along the U.S.-Mexico border, makes changes to family-based legal immigration programs and ends a diversity lottery system used by immigrants from smaller countries,” Ed O’Keefe reports. Senate Minority Leader Chuck “Schumer said the Grassley plan unfairly targets family-based immigration and that making such broad changes as part of a plan to legalize just a few million people ‘makes no sense.’
“In a bid to soften Trump’s proposals and win over Democrats, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) unveiled a watered-down version of the GOP proposal — but had not won support from members of either party by late Tuesday. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a longtime proponent of comprehensive immigration changes, said the Grassley proposal should be the focus of the Senate’s debate. … Schumer and other Democrats, meanwhile, voiced support for a plan by Sens. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) that would grant legal status to dreamers in the country since 2013 but would not immediately authorize money to build out southern border walls and fencing.”
— Democrats would like to pass a narrow bill that only protects DACA recipients, but they know that’s not possible with Republicans in control of Congress and the presidency. To get the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster, they’re conceding on at least some of Trump’s demands related to security. Sanders said there are between 55 to 57 votes for a compromise that would save the dreamers and fund border protections. “We are scrambling now for three to five more votes,” he said.
— The Senate will convene at 10 a.m. to continue debate, as negotiations behind the scenes continue. Somewhat counterintuitively, conservative hardliners believe that Latinos will be less likely to turn out this November if nothing passes in Congress because activists will blame Democrats for not delivering.
Bernie Sanders heads to a Democratic caucus meeting in the Capitol. (Oliver Contreras for The Washington Post)
— Despite concerted efforts by Trump and McConnell to drive a wedge through the Democratic caucus, there remains a remarkable degree of unity. This highlights how much the terms of the immigration debate have shifted over the past decade. Every Democrat in Congress now wants to protect DACA recipients. It wasn’t always this way. The House passed a Dream Act in 2010 that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to apply for citizenship if they entered the United States as children, graduated from high school or got an equivalent degree, and had been in the United States for at least five years. Five moderate Democrats in the Senate voted no. If each of them had supported it, the bill would have become law, and DACA would have been unnecessary. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) is the only one of those five Democrats still left. (The others retired or lost.) Now Tester speaks out against the president’s decision to end DACA. (I explored this dynamic in-depth last September.)
Sanders marveled during our interview at how much the polling has shifted in recent years toward protecting dreamers, with some public surveys showing that as many 90 percent of Americans don’t think they should be deported. The share who think they should also have a pathway to become U.S. citizens has also risen. “If we talked a year or two ago, I’m not sure I would have thought that would be possible,” he said.
Hillary Clinton relentlessly attacked Bernie during the debates in 2016 for voting to kill comprehensive immigration reform in 2007. Sanders – working closely with some of the leading unions – expressed concern back then that the bill would drive down wages for native-born workers by flooding the labor market with cheap foreign workers. This position caused him problems with Hispanics during his presidential bid.
Sanders rejects the idea that his views have changed since 2007, and he still defends his 11-year-old vote. He noted that the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) opposed that bill, as did the Southern Poverty Law Center, because it included a guest worker program that was “akin to slavery.” He said he remains just as concerned about guest worker programs as he was back then, but that he’s always favored a comprehensive solution that includes legal protections for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants who live here. “You can say you support immigration reform, but obviously the devil is in the details on what that means,” the senator explained. “I stood with progressive organizations who said you don’t want to bring indentured servitude.”
Sanders criticized a guest worker program in his home state that allows resorts to hire ski instructors from Europe instead of native Vermonters. “Now do you not think we can find young people in Vermont who know how to ski and snowboard? But if you go to some of the resorts, that’s what you would find,” he said. “When I was a kid, we worked at summer jobs to help pay for college. … So I think we want to take a hard look at guest worker programs. Some of them remain very unfair.”
— After coming surprisingly close to toppling Clinton and winning the Democratic nomination two years ago, Sanders is at or near the top of the pack in every poll of potential 2020 primary match-ups. He’s going to Des Moines next Friday for a rally with congressional candidate Pete D’Alessandro, his first visit to Iowa this year. Sanders will also go to Wisconsin for Randy Bryce, who is running against Speaker Paul Ryan, and Illinois, where he’ll boost Chuy Garcia’s bid for retiring Rep. Luis Gutierrez’s open seat. A few weeks after that, he plans a tour of the Southwest. “I’m going to do everything I can to help people in 2018,” Sanders said.
Lobbying for their lives
— Republicans have gone the other direction. Before Trump came on the scene, the party was divided but GOP elites agreed that, for the long-term survival of the party, they needed to embrace more inclusive policies. Losses in 2012 prompted many Senate Republicans to endorse a comprehensive bill the next year (Sanders voted for it too), but the legislation was doomed in the House after Majority Leader Eric Cantor went down in a Virginia primary partly because of his perceived softness on the issue.
Elected Republicans used to insist adamantly that they were not anti-immigration but anti-illegal immigration. That’s changed. At the behest of Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Republicans are rallying around the idea of dramatic reductions in legal immigration. Two years ago, this was an extreme idea that most GOP senators would have quickly distanced themselves from. Now it’s considered mainstream and the centerpiece of the bill that McConnell has rallied his members behind.
To put it in perspective: By cutting the rate of legal immigration, Trump’s proposal – codified in Grassley’s bill — would delay the date that white Americans become a minority of the population by as many as five additional years, according to expert analysis.
“What’s very sad, but not unusual given the moment we’re living in, is that Republicans are more concerned about their right-wing, extremist, xenophobic base,” said Sanders. “You would think that, with 85 to 90 percent of people supporting protections for the dreamers, that it would not take a profile in courage to pass legislation to protect them.”
Kelly: ‘Dreamers’ who didn’t sign up for DACA were ‘too afraid’ or ‘too lazy’
— A dual-track fight over DACA is playing out in the courts. A federal judge in New York issued a preliminary injunction last night that keeps the program alive beyond Trump’s March 5 deadline so that legal challenges can play out. “A federal judge in California has issued a similar injunction, and the Supreme Court is expected this week to consider whether it will take up the fight over DACA,” Matt Zapotosky reports.
U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis recognized that Trump “indisputably” has the authority to end the program put in place by Barack Obama, but he also called the administration’s arguments that DACA was unconstitutional and illegal under federal law flimsy. “Because that conclusion was erroneous, the decision to end the DACA program cannot stand,” he wrote.
— Happy Valentine’s Day. Don’t forget to get a gift.
— What I’m especially excited about this morning is baseball. Pitchers and catchers are reporting for spring tr
Contrary to most of the “chatter,” I think that the Dreamers and the Democrats have the upper hand in this one. I’ll tell you why below!
A “border security package,” could involve the Wall, technology and much needed management improvements at DHS (but certainly no additional detention money — stop the “New American Gulag” — or personnel for the Border Patrol until they full current vacancies and account for how they are currently are deploying agents).
Beyond that, the Dems probably could agree to a reallocation of diversity and some preference visas while maintaining current legal immigration levels. Cutting legal immigration levels, eliminating family immigration, or authorizing further denials of due process (the totally bogus and essentially evil claim that the current already inadequate protections for children and other vulnerable migrant’s are “loopholes”) should be “non-starters.”
If they can’t get the deal they want, the Dems can walk away and still win for the Dreamers in the long run. Here is why:
I doubt that Trump would actually veto a compromise bill passed by both Houses that protected Dreamers without his full “Four Pillars of White Nationalism” program.
If he does, any Democrat who can’t make Trump and the GOP pay for such a dumb move in the next election cycle doesn’t deserve to be a Democrat.
The “full Dreamer protection” trade for border security with no other changes should be a “no brainer.” If Trump or the GOP “tank” it over the restrictionist agenda, the Democrats should be able to make them pay at the polls.
Right now, the Administration is under two injunctions halting the repeal of the “core DACA” program.
If the Supremes don’t intervene, that issue could be tied up in the lower Federal Courts for years.
It’s very clear that the Administration’s current position is ultimately a loser before the lower Federal Courts.
If the Administration tries to “short-circuit” the process by going through APA to promulgate a regulation to terminate DACA, that process also is likely to be successfully challenged in the Federal Courts.
The so-called “legal rationale” that Sessions has invoked for ending DACA has literally been “laughed out of court.”
Trump himself has said that there is really no reason to remove Dreamers from the U.S.
So, on the merits, an attempt to terminate DACA by regulation probably would be held “without any legal or rational basis” by the lower Federal Courts.
Even if the Supremes give the “green light” to terminate DACA, most “Dreamers” by now have plausible cases for other forms of relief.
Many DACA recipients have never been in removal proceedings. If they have been here for at least 10 years, have clean criminal backgrounds, and have spouses or children who are U.S. citizens they can apply for “cancellation of removal.”
“Former DACA” recipients appear to be a “particular social group” for asylum and withholding of removal purposes. They are “particularized, the characteristic of having DACA revoked is “immutable,” and they are highly “socially distinct.” Many of them come from countries with abysmal human rights records and ongoing, directed violence. They therefore would have plausible asylum or withholding claims, or claims under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”).
If ICE tries to use information voluntarily given by the Dreamers during the application process to establish removability or for any other adverse reason, that is likely to provoke a challenge that will be successful in at least some lower Federal Courts.
Safety in numbers.
There is nothing that Trump, Sessions, and the DHS can actually do to remove 700,000+ Dreamers.
The U.S. Immigration Courts are backed up for years, with nearly 700,000 already pending cases! Sessions is doing everything he can to make the backlog even worse. Dreamers will go to the “end of the line.”
Sure Sessions would like to speed up the deportation “assembly line” (a/k/a “The Deportation Railway”).
But, his boneheaded and transparently unfair attempts to do that are highly likely to cause “big time” pushback from the Federal Courts and actually “tie up” the entire system — not just “Dreamers.”
The last time the DOJ tied to mindlessly accelerate the process, under AG John Ashcroft, the Courts of Appeals remanded defective deportation orders by the basket-load for various due process and legal violations — many with stinging published opinions.
Finally, even former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez (“Gonzo I”), hardly a “Due Process Junkie” had enough and slowed down the train. It took years for the “haste makes waste” Circuit Court remands to work their way back through the system. Some might still be hanging around.
Because the GOP White Nationalists and Trump read off of “restrictionist cue cards” that don’t take account of the law, facts, or history, the Dems should have a huge advantage here if and when individual “Dreamer” removal cases get to the Federal Courts.
Each “Dreamer removal case” should present the Democrats with excellent example of the cruelty, stupidity, and total wastefulness of the Trump/Sessions/DHS enforcement policies. Wasting money to “Make America Worse.” Come on, man!
Bottom Line:Trump and Sessions have created a “false Dreamer emergency” that they can’t escape without some help from the Democrats. If the Democrats see an opportunity to make a “good deal” for the Dreamers, they should take it. But, they shouldn’t trade the Dreamers for the harmful White Nationalist restrictionist agenda! Eventually, the problem will be solved in a way that is favorable for most Dreamers, regardless of what the White Nationalists threaten right now. The Dreamers might just have to hang on longer until we get at least some degree of “regime change.”
The Senate is set to begin debating immigration Monday evening, and in a rare occurrence for the upper chamber of Congress, no one is quite sure how that will go.
Late Sunday, a group of Republicans introduced a version of President Donald Trump’s proposal on how to handle the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protected young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation before Trump decided to terminate it. That is expected to be one of the amendments that will compete for votes this week.
Some things are known: McConnell teed up the debate early Friday morning, as he had pledged, immediately after the Senate voted to end a government shutdown. The bill McConnell chose was entirely unrelated to immigration, which he said he planned to do to allow a blank slate for proposals to compete for votes.
Let the debate begin
At 5:30 p.m. Monday, senators will vote on whether to open debate on the bill, a vote that is largely expected to succeed.
From there, a lot will be up to senators. Both sides will be able to offer amendments that will compete for 60 votes — the threshold to advance legislation in the Senate. It’s expected that amendments will be subject to that threshold and will require consent agreements from senators for votes, opening up the process to negotiations.
If a proposal can garner 60 votes, it will likely pass the Senate, but it will still face an uncertain fate. The House Republican leadership has made no commitment to consider the Senate bill or hold a debate of its own, and House Speaker Paul Ryan has pledged repeatedly to consider a bill only if President Donald Trump will sign it.
Different groups have been working to prepare legislation for the immigration effort, including the conservatives who worked off the White House framework and a group of bipartisan senators who have been meeting nearly daily to try to reach agreement on the issue. Trump has proposed giving 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship in exchange for $25 billion for his long-promised border wall and a host of other strict immigration reforms.
The bill from GOP senators largely sticks to those bullet points, including sharp cuts to family-based migration, ending the diversity lottery and giving federal authorities enhanced deportation and detention powers.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of about 20 senators was drafting legislation over the weekend to offer perhaps multiple amendments and potentially keep the debate focused on a narrow DACA-border security bill. Multiple members of the group have expressed confidence that only such a narrow approach could pass the Senate — and hope that a strong vote could move Trump to endorse the approach and pave the way for passage in the House.
Advocates on the left may offer a clean DACA fix, like the DREAM Act, as well as the conservative White House proposal — though neither is expected to have 60 votes.
The move to hold an unpredictable Senate debate next week fulfills the promise McConnell made on the Senate floor to end the last government shutdown in mid-January, when he pledged to hold a neutral debate on the immigration issue that was “fair to all sides.”
Even Sunday, leadership aides weren’t able to say entirely how the week would go. The debate could easily go beyond one week, and with a scheduled recess coming next week, it could stretch on through February or even longer.
One Democratic aide said there will likely be an effort to reach an agreement between Republicans and Democrats on timing so that amendments can be dealt with efficiently, and, absent that, alternating proposals may be considered under time-consuming procedural steps.
“We just have to see how the week goes and how high the level of cooperation is,” the aide said.
Many Democrats and moderate Republicans were placing hope in the bipartisan group’s progress.
“We’re waiting for the moderates to see if they can produce a bill,” said the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, on Thursday. “And considering options, there are lots of them, on the Democratic side. There’s no understanding now about the first Democratic amendment.”
Durbin said traditionally both sides have shared a few amendments with each other to begin to figure out the process’ structure. He also said the bipartisan group could be an influential voting bloc, if they can work together.
“They could be the deciding factor, and I’ve been hopeful that they would be, because I’ve had friends in those Common Sense (Coalition), whatever they call themselves, and reported back the conversations, and I think they’re on the right track.”
As she was leaving the Senate floor Friday night after the Senate voted to pass a budget deal and fund government into March, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins was optimistic about the preparedness of the bipartisan group she has been leading for the all-Senate debate.
“We’ll be ready,” she told reporters.
Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford, who has been working both with the group introducing the White House proposal and the bipartisan group, said late Friday night that his plan is “to get things done.”
“It’s no grand secret that I have no problem with the President’s proposal; the challenge is going to be trying to get 60 votes,” Lankford said. “So I would have no issue with what (Sens. John) Cornyn and (Chuck) Grassley are working on and with the President supporting that, but I also want to continue to try finding out and see, if that doesn’t get 60 votes, what could.”
He said everyone is waiting to find out what happens next.
“Everybody’s trying to figure out the chaos of next week, and I’m with you,” Lankford said. “I don’t know yet how open the process is going to be. I hope it’s very open.”
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Fortunately, we can rely on Tal’s amazing up to the minute reporting and analysis to keep us abreast of what’s happening on the Senate floor and in the cloakrooms!
“Washington (CNN)As the ink dried Friday on a major budget compromise deal in Congress, immigration advocates were taking stock of getting left behind — again — without a resolution for hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants on the verge of losing protections.
It’s an open question if there are cards left to play in the push to enshrine the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy into law. While no advocates say they are giving up, many also openly admit that Democrats and allies gave up their best negotiating position on the issue without another clear avenue coming up.
In the meantime, a pending court decision on DACA, which President Donald Trump is terminating, means the immigrants protected by it and who mostly have never known another country than the US, won’t begin losing their protections as planned on March 5 — but their fate could be reversed at any moment by another court decision.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who has long served as one of the most outspoken advocates in Congress for immigration reform, was pessimistic with reporters early Friday morning as Congress passed the deal with virtually every Democratic priority except DACA in it.
“No, I don’t, I don’t,” he said when asked if there was any other way Democrats could exert leverage on the issue. Gutierrez said the plan from the beginning was to either attach a DACA compromise to the must-pass budget deal or raising the debt ceiling, both of which were passed in the early morning hours Friday without DACA. Arizona Democrat Raul Grijalva called the episode “disheartening.”
close dialog
“We have decoupled the issues. Your leverage is you want them one and the same,” Gutierrez said. “Do we need a new way forward? Yeah, we’re going to figure out a new way forward.”
There is one glimmer of hope for advocates. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made good on his promise to tee up an immigration debate on the Senate floor next week. Moments after the Senate passed the deal, McConnell filed to have a vote to open debate on an unrelated bill Monday evening — which will kick off a process where an as-yet-unknown number of amendments will be able to compete for a procedural threshold of 60 votes to then pass the Senate.
It was that promise that put in motion the deal that eventually severed DACA from other negotiations but also offers a rare opportunity for lawmakers to compete on a neutral playing field for bipartisan support.
“We’re pivoting, what can you do?” said longtime advocate Frank Sharry, executive director of the pro-immigration group America’s Voice. “We’ve had our doubts about the viability of a standalone legislative process but that’s what we’re left with, so we’re hoping to make the most of it. … That will put pressure on the President and the House to do the same.”
Already, groups of lawmakers are preparing for the floor debate, even as it remains unclear how many amendments will be offered, how debate will be structured and how long it might last.
A group of roughly 20 bipartisan senators is drafting legislation over the weekend to offer perhaps multiple amendments and potentially keep the debate focused on a narrow DACA-border security bill. Advocates on the left may offer a clean DACA fix like the Dream Act, and some on the right are drafting a version of the White House proposal that would include $25 billion for a border wall and heavy cuts to legal immigration with a pathway to citizenship — though neither is expected to have 60 votes.
“First of all, we have the Senate procedure, which is my hope. We’re working with the (bipartisan group) to see if we can come to a two-pillar solution,” said Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who has long worked on the issue, when asked Thursday what comes next for DACA. “Hopefully we could gather 60 votes for that. And then that would be it — we’d resist everything else, any other amendments, and then go back to the House and create all the pressure in the House to make it happen.”
Step 2: Pressure Ryan
If the Senate can pass a bill, lawmakers hope Trump will fully embrace it, freeing House Speaker Paul Ryan to call it up.
Already as the budget deal was on track for passage, House advocates began a pressure campaign to urge Ryan to make a promise like McConnell — though Ryan continually demurred and insisted instead he’s committed to the issue of immigration and passing a bill the President can support.
“I think we have to be realistic,” said Arizona’s Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego. “We’re going to have to deal with reality and find whatever means possible to put pressure on Speaker Ryan and the Republican Party to bring, again, a fair vote on the Dream Act to the floor.”
“I think for me the strategy has to be pressure Ryan and bring it to the floor,” Grijalva said, adding the process should allow any proposal to vie for a majority — even if it doesn’t have a majority of Republican votes. “The Senate, when they gave up on not voting for it, at the very minimum extracted a time certain and a debate on something. We don’t even have that.”
Democrats also may have some Republican supporters in the House to pressure Ryan. A bipartisan group of lawmakers that includes two dozen Republicans sent a letter to Ryan asking to open a floor debate like McConnell.
Republican Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania said he’s been urging fellow moderates to use their numbers the way that conservatives on the right flank do.
“The Freedom Caucus has been effective because they’ll use their power of 24 (votes to deny a majority), and they take the hostage, they’ll do what they have to do,” Dent said. “I tell our members, we put our votes together, we can really direct an outcome. … I suspect if the Senate sends us a bipartisan DACA bill, that’s when we’re going to have to flex our muscles.”
But others have doubts. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a member of the bipartisan group, says he learned his lesson in 2013, when he co-authored legislation that passed the Senate with wide margins but died in the House.
“There are some who believe that if we get a bunch of votes it’ll force the House to do it. I don’t agree,” Rubio said. “We could vote on it 90-10. … This notion that the House is going to listen to what a senator tells them to do is not real.”
Step 3: Other leverage
If the legislative process can’t produce success, advocates say, they will look for any other leverage points they can.
“If that doesn’t work out, then there’s still an omnibus at the end of the day,” said Menendez, referring to the spending bills due in March to fund the government under the topline two-year budget deal passed Friday.
But Gutierrez doubted that approach — scoffing at the idea that Democrats would be taken seriously if they threatened to withhold their votes yet again without success.
“Really?” Gutierrez said about the omnibus as leverage. “Is it plausible? Is it realistic? Can you continue to threaten with something?”
Other options could include a temporary, one-year or two-year extension of DACA without a permanent solution, though lawmakers have decried that option.
Still, many aren’t ready to give up hope.
“This President clearly wants to get it done, I think the majority of Republicans want to get it done and the majority of Democrats want to get it done. Can we reach that balance? We can get there, I feel very confident we can get there,” said Florida’s Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.”
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Although it should be a “no brainer,” I’m not as confident as Rep. Diaz-Balart that this group can “get to yes.” A fair resolution of the “Dreamers” situation just isn’t very high on the GOP agenda, particularly in the House. And, both the Dreamers and the Dems are coming to grips with the obvious reality: if you want to set or control the agenda, you have to win elections!
We need Julia Preston to lock these folks in a room for awhile!
As lawmakers announced a budget deal that would address many of the issues stymieing Washington — with the key exception of immigration — House Democrats on Wednesday were feeling the heat.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took to the House floor Wednesday to warn she would not support the burgeoning deal without a commitment from House Speaker Paul Ryan that the Republican-controlled House would hold a debate and vote on immigration legislation as his Senate counterpart Mitch McConnell has pledged, setting up a potential standoff.
The two-year deal that leadership announced on the Senate floor would set domestic and defense spending levels, push back the debt limit and resolve some outstanding issues Democrats have pushed for like support for community health centers and disaster relief money.
But left out of the deal would be a resolution for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy that Trump is ending — and House Democrats have long been steadfast they would not support government funding without it.
The Senate is close, nevertheless, to sending the deal to the House with a continuing resolution that would fund the government into March, squeezing Democrats to risk rejecting a budget compromise over DACA alone, a position they have actively sought to avoid. Democratic votes in the House haven’t been necessary to pass continuing resolutions this year, but a number of House conservatives are expected to oppose the budget deal because of the domestic spending levels. That will force Democrats’ hand.
“The budget caps agreement includes many Democratic priorities,” Pelosi said in a statement. “This morning, we took a measure of our caucus because the package does nothing to advance bipartisan legislation to protect Dreamers in the House. Without a commitment from Speaker Ryan comparable to the commitment from Leader McConnell, this package does not have my support.”
Some Democrats were already backing up Pelosi as the deal was announced Wednesday afternoon.
California Rep. Eric Swallwell said while he supports a DACA fix, his concern was more about the size of the deal.
“I still have a real problem dramatically increasing the caps, adding to the deficit, when we just added $2 trillion for the tax plan. So if (Republicans) want to roll back their tax cuts so that we don’t have such a deep, deep deficit, I would be more receptive to that,” Swallwell said.
Congressional Hispanic Caucus member and California Democratic Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán said Democrats should not accept a funding deal without what they’ve asked for.
“No, I think that we aren’t using all the leverage we have and that’s a disappointment and I won’t support it,” she said. “We as a caucus have talked about making this one of our leverage points and using this as a leverage point. I hope that we continue to do that.”
But the objection wasn’t universal, and the mood in a House Democrat caucus meeting this morning that convinced Pelosi to speak on the floor was split, according to a Democrat in the meeting. Some were “understandably upset” about not including DACA recipients and there was “generally a lot of frustration.”
But others raised questions, asking, “What is our plan? What is our message? How are we going to win this?” After the last shutdown members are still unclear on the path forward and expect the Senate to pass this, leaving them little room. The source said there is a lot in the deal that many Democrats support, including the increase in domestic programs.
This source told CNN “a lot of people are going to vote for it. It’s not a situation where we can hold all our members.”
It’s unclear if Democratic leadership will whip against the bill. Asked Wednesday if leadership is instructing its members any particular way, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley demurred.
“People in our caucus will do what they think is in the best interests of their constituents and for the country,” Crowley said.
And Crowley didn’t commit to supporting or rejecting the deal.
“There is more to this deal than the issue of immigration,” he said, referencing the disaster relief money, in particular. “It is very complex. This There? is much more to this than simply one-off issues. And we’ll have to look at that in totality.”
Unlike recent past government funding deadlines, House Democrats have been holding their fire in pressuring their Senate colleagues to reject a deal that doesn’t address DACA. That has largely been because of McConnell’s promise to turn to a “fair” process on immigration after February 8, when the deadline comes.
“It’s hard, because we want them to be clear that this is reckless by the Republicans, but we are also clear that they want to keep the Senate and Congress moving so they have an opportunity, not just at getting a full year (funding) — stop doing (continuing resolutions) — but also to deal with other issues including DACA, by getting a vote on something,” said on Tuesday.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been one of the loudest voices for rejecting funding without an immigration deal, even marching from the House side to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office in December to urge him to hold the line. That pressure isn’t there this time.
“I don’t sense any,” said Arizona Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, a member of the caucus. But, he added, there’s “some trepidation” about the Senate process because of what could be added to a neutral bill — both in the Senate and the House.
“This has been the black hole for immigration, the House of Representatives, since I’ve been here, 15 years, and nothing comes out of here, and whatever goes to conference, if the House leadership has any say, it will get uglier,” Grijalva said.
But while Democrats were keeping their powder dry on a continuing resolution, as talk of the caps deal being near circulated, one Democratic House member said on condition of anonymity to discuss dynamics, that began to change. Tuesday night and Wednesday morning brought a flurry of communications between members, the lawmaker said.
“There is more support than yesterday on holding the line,” the member said Wednesday. “We shouldn’t negotiate the caps away without a DACA fix.”
CNN’s Phil Mattingly, Deirdre Walsh and Sunlen Serfaty contributed to this report.”
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I can’t see any “Bipartisan Dreamer Bill” along the lines being discussed in the Senate that will be able to pass the House as long as the GOP is in charge and Paul Ryan is the Speaker.
I also don’t see a “House Dreamer Bill” passing. The “Goodlatte Bill” — favored by many in the GOP –is so miserly in its Dreamer protections and has so much of the Administration’s White Nationalist restrictionist agenda attached that all or almost all Democrats and probably a “good-sized chunk” of “moderate” Republicans are likely to be able to defeat it.
But, while the Democrats and the GOP moderates in the House might be able to come up with a more reasonable proposal that actually could pass, like the Hurd-Aguilar Bill, under the “Hastert Rule,” Speaker Ryan won’t bring it to the floor for a vote because the bill would rely on a majority of Democrats for passage.
Given the foregoing scenarios, I don’t see where forcing another shutdown gets the Democrats. With the GOP and the White House opposed to including a narrower “Dreamers-Border Security Only” (only two of Trump’s “four pillars”) in a Budget Agreement, there isn’t a feasible “end game” for the House Democrats. They could force a shutdown, but I don’t think they will be able to force the GOP to include Dreamer protection in a Budget deal. So, ultimately, they will have to “fold,” as has happened in the past.
So, what’s the best result I could see for the “Dreamers” right now: 1) eventually getting a “temporary extension” of DACA from Congress, or 2) an “indefinite hold” on DACA recision from the Federal Courts (which wouldn’t preclude the Administration from going through a “Notice and Comment” regulatory process to repeal DACA). Either of those would only help those who qualify for the current DACA program — not the “expanded DACA” group. Either way, permanent relief for the Dreamers is likely to require “regime change” at least at some level.
“Graham: ‘Increasingly pessimistic on immigration’
Tal Kopan
By Tal Kopan, CNN
Updated 4:54 PM ET, Tue February 6, 2018
lindsey graham card
Sen. Graham: We don’t need $25B for a wall 01:22
Washington (CNN)One of the strongest advocates for a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy in the Senate says he is “increasingly pessimistic” that Congress will pass a fix beyond a short-term “punt.”
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, leaving a meeting of the Republican conference, that he now believes only a one- or two-year extension of the DACA program, which protects young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children, is likely.
McConnell holds all the cards on next week's immigration debate, and he's not tipping his hand
McConnell holds all the cards on next week’s immigration debate, and he’s not tipping his hand
The dire prediction came from a longtime advocate of immigration reform who has been one of the strongest supporters of getting a permanent solution to DACA — and who had a confrontation with President Donald Trump about vulgar comments the President made in rejecting a bipartisan compromise Graham negotiated.
“I’m becoming increasingly pessimistic about immigration,” Graham said. “I don’t think we’re going to do a whole lot beyond something like the BRIDGE Act, which would be extend DACA for a year or two, and some border security. It’s just too many moving parts.”
Graham’s comments came before said on Tuesday he supports a government shutdown if Democrats won’t agree to tighten immigration laws, undercutting ongoing bipartisan negotiations on Capitol Hill.
Graham, who has also been a part of bipartisan Senate meetings that are seeking a compromise and who helped convince Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to promise to bring immigration to the floor in a “fair” process next week, called that option unsatisfactory but likely.
“That will be a punt, that will not be winning for the country, but that’s most likely where we’re going to go,” Graham said.”
“Top Senate leaders said Tuesday that they were approaching a sweeping two-year deal to increase federal spending, which would clear a legislative roadblock that has kept Congress spinning its wheels for months.
Despite the optimism, no final agreement was in hand with less than three days until a Thursday midnight deadline, and even as congressional leaders were projecting optimism, President Trump was raising tensions by openly pondering a shutdown if Democrats did not agree to his immigration plan.
“I’d love to see a shutdown if we don’t get this stuff taken care of,” Trump said at a White House event focused on the crime threat posed by immigrants. “If we have to shut it down because the Democrats don’t want safety . . . let’s shut it down.”
Those comments came at the same time Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) were telling reporters that a breakthrough was at hand — one that would deliver a defense spending boost Trump has long demanded as well as an increase in the nondefense programs championed by Democrats.
“We’re on the way to getting an agreement and on the way to getting an agreement very soon,” McConnell said. Schumer echoed the optimism moments later: “I am very hopeful that we can come to an agreement, an agreement very soon.”
Trump’s remarks, at least initially, appeared unlikely to snuff out the negotiations, which mainly involved lawmakers and their aides — not Trump and his White House deputies — and have largely steered clear of the explosive immigration issue.
The deal to lift congressional spending caps through 2019 could be the only solution to a legislative puzzle that has already required four temporary spending bills to keep the government open since the fiscal year began on Oct. 1.
The House is set to vote Tuesday evening on a spending bill that would fund the military through September at boosted levels but leave other agencies running on fumes until March. That plan would be amended in the Senate, where Democrats are holding out for a matching increase in nondefense spending.”
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Read the rest of the story at the link.
Doing his best to destroy government and make America as dysfunctional as he is. Vladi must be delighted!
“Intrepid 24-7-365” Immigration Reporter Tal Kopan and her wonderful CNN colleagues provide up to the minute coverage of the latest developments. Thanks, Tal, for all that you and your colleagues do!
Despite fight in Congress over immigration, the DACA deadline is up in the air
By Tal Kopan, CNN
When President Donald Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, he created a March 5 deadline for protections to end, designed to give Congress time to act to save the program.
But while lawmakers have continued to use the March 5 date as a target, court action and the realities of the program have made any deadline murky and unclear.
As a result, there currently is no date that the protections will actually run out for the roughly 700,000 DACA recipients, young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children — but there remains a large amount of uncertainty about whether they could disappear at any time.
Trump himself mentioned the March 5 deadline in a tweet Monday.
“Any deal on DACA that does not include STRONG border security and the desperately needed WALL is a total waste of time. March 5th is rapidly approaching and the Dems seem not to care about DACA. Make a deal!”
The original plan proposed by Trump in September was that the Department of Homeland Security would phase out DACA by letting the two-year protections and work permits issued under the program expire without the option to renew them. But the administration allowed anyone with permits that expired before March 5 a one-month window to apply for a renewal, which would reset their two-year clock.
However, 20,000 of the 150,000 eligible to renew didn’t. They were either rejected, unable to pull together the paperwork and $500 fee, or unwilling to trust the government with their personal data and enroll again. Further complicating things, some of those rejections were later reopened after DHS acknowledged that thousands may have had their applications lost in the mail or delivered on time but rejected as late.
Then, in January, a federal court judge issued an order stopping the President’s plan to phase out DACA, and DHS has since resumed processing applications for renewals for all the recipients who had protections in September.
But the administration has also aggressively sought to have the judge’s ruling overturned by a higher court, including the Supreme Court, only adding uncertainty to the situation. If a court were to overturn the judge’s ruling, it could have several outcomes, including letting renewals processed in the interim stand, invalidating all of those renewals or even ending the whole program immediately.
McConnell holds all the cards on next week’s immigration debate, and he’s not tipping his hand
By Tal Kopan and Lauren Fox, CNN
In a week the Senate is supposed to debate and vote on major immigration legislation for the first time in years — and only one person might know what it will look like: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“That, you’d have to check with the leader on,” said Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, Monday about the process as he left a GOP Senate leadership meeting.
“You’ll have to ask him,” echoed fellow leadership member Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. “He’ll have to decide what he wants to do.”
“Sen. McConnell hasn’t announced his intention,” Majority Whip John Cornyn told reporters.
Lawmakers of both parties told reporters Monday repeatedly they had no idea what the legislation or the process they’d be voting on likely next week would look like.
McConnell promised to turn to immigration on the Senate floor after February 8, the next date that government funding runs out, if broad agreement couldn’t be reached in that time. The promise, which he made on the Senate floor, was instrumental in ending a brief government shutdown last month, with senators of both parties pointing to the pledge for a “fair” floor debate as a major breakthrough.
The reality is, though, that McConnell has a lot of discretion as to how such a vote could go — and as of now, he has not given many clues.
Even in a meeting with White House chief of staff John Kelly, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and White House legislative director Marc Short, a source said McConnell “wouldn’t indicate what he’s going to do.”
“Total poker face,” the administration official said. “He’s not going to tip his hand.”
But the group came for the meeting, the official said, to “make sure he hears from the administration.”
On Monday, lawmakers expressed hope that such a deal could come together before the Thursday funding deadline, but wouldn’t call it likely. That tees up a vote next week with an uncertain end.
“Probably if nothing is agreed on this week, which I would not be optimistic will happen, then Mitch’ll call up some bill next week and let everyone get their votes on their amendments and see where it goes,” Thune said. “My assumption is that in the end, something will pass. But I guess we’ll see.”
McConnell’s choices will be instrumental in deciding how the debate goes, lawmakers and experts say, and he has a number of options on how to proceed, from the base bill, to the amendment process.
“There’s a lot of different conversations that continue, I don’t think anyone has narrowed it down to one, two or even three paths at this point,” Gardner said.
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving GOP senator, was the only lawmaker who seemed to know how the debate would look.
“I have a pretty good sense. I’ve been through it a hundred times,” he said, laughing. Asked if that meant a mess, he added, still chuckling: “It’s always a mess.”
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that it was “disgraceful” that an NFL player was killed by a man who police believe is an undocumented immigrant in a suspected drunk driving accident over the weekend.
“So disgraceful that a person illegally in our country killed @Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson. This is just one of many such preventable tragedies. We must get the Dems to get tough on the Border, and with illegal immigration, FAST!” Trump tweeted.
Indianapolis Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson and another man were struck and killed in a suspected drunken driving accident early Sunday morning. Indiana State Police say the man they believe hit them is an undocumented immigrant who has been deported twice.
“My prayers and best wishes are with the family of Edwin Jackson, a wonderful young man whose life was so senselessly taken. @Colts,” Trump said in a second tweet Tuesday morning.
The crash occurred when Jackson and the other man were struck on the shoulder of Interstate 70 in Indianapolis.
Read the complete report from Tal and Meagan at the above link.
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There’s always something “shaking” in the “hot button” world of 21st Century Immigration.
“White House rejects bipartisan immigration plan pushed by McCain, Coons
By Tal Kopan and Kaitlan Collins, CNN
The White House is dismissing an immigration deal brokered by a bipartisan group of lawmakers as a non-starter just hours before it is expected to be formally introduced in the Senate.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons are slated to introduce a bill Monday that would grant eventual citizenship to young undocumented immigrants who have been in the country since 2013 and came to the US as children, but it does not address all of the President’s stated immigration priorities, like ending family-based immigration categories — which Republicans call “chain migration” — or ending the diversity visa program.
It also would not immediately authorize the $30 billion that Trump is seeking to build the border wall, instead greenlighting a study of border security needs. The bill would also seek to address the number of undocumented immigrants staying in the US by increasing the number of resources for the immigration courts, where cases can take years to finish.
The bill is a companion to a piece of House legislation that has 54 co-sponsors split evenly by party.
A White House official rebuffed the effort, telling CNN that it takes “a lot of effort” to write up a bill worse than the Graham-Durbin immigration bill, but somehow “this one is worse.”
Trump tweeted about the latest immigration efforts Monday, writing, “Any deal on DACA that does not include STRONG border security and the desperately needed WALL is a total waste of time. March 5th is rapidly approaching and the Dems seem not to care about DACA. Make a deal!”
But Coons defended the bill in a conference call with reporters on Monday, calling it a “strong starting place” and a “fresh start” if other talks about immigration don’t result in a compromise.
The White House has been aware of the legislation introduced by Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd and California Democrat Rep. Pete Aguilar for weeks, with officials being informed while it was being drafted and with chief of staff John Kelly and legislative director Marc Short being briefed on the bill in meetings with members of Congress, including Hurd and Aguilar. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, of which Aguilar is a key member, has been especially supportive of the bill as a compromise, as have moderate Republicans.
But the President has not embraced the proposal, largely for what it leaves out. Hurd and Aguilar, who first described their bill to CNN, have said they intentionally did not seek to appropriate specific funds in their proposal, as neither are on appropriations committees. They have called their bill a “foundation” for conversations about a big deal.
For the border, the bill would create a “smart wall” where the Department of Homeland Security would gain “operational control” of the border by the end of 2020 through “technology, physical barriers, levees, tools and other devices.” On family-based migration, the bill doesn’t make explicit reference to sponsoring relatives, but the bill authors say that existing law would prohibit parents of these individuals who came to the US illegally to apply for a visa to come back without returning to their home country for at least 10 years before applying and the bill does nothing to erase that requirement.
Coons said that McCain approached him about being a co-sponsor, saying that McCain is deeply concerned about the lack of future certainty for the military because of a budget impasse and the lack of a broader deal on immigration issues, and wanted to find a partner to introduce the Hurd-Aguilar bill in the Senate as part of that effort.
The Delaware Democrat said he recognizes that the bill does not appropriate any money for the border security piece and he’d be willing to look at doing that as well — and he said he’s still committed to the bipartisan Senate talks and is hopeful those could have a breakthrough and a base bill he’d support by the end of the week.
“I remain hopeful that that group can produce a bipartisan deal that is broader than what the McCain-Coons bill is this morning, but in the very real possibility that that does not come together, I think the (bill) is a good base bill,” Coons said. “I view the McCain-Coons proposal as a reasonable base bill that would get done the two things we need to get done: … the status of the Dreamers and border security.”
Coons also had some harsh words for the President, saying that despite the White House saying his proposal is the only one that can move forward, “I’m sorry, that’s not how the Senate works.” He rejected White House criticism of his proposal and said the “worst” thing would be failing to act or only doing a one-year stopgap.
“The President prides himself on being the great dealmaker,” Coons said. “Sometimes he makes the greatest contribution when he makes his position known and steps back … he is least constructive when he does what he did a few weeks ago.”
McCain said in a statement the new bill has “broad support.”
The Senate is expected to turn to a floor debate on immigration soon, and Coons has been part of a group of bipartisan lawmakers that have been meeting for weeks to try to find a compromise that could pass the vote with more than the 60 votes needed to advance legislation, which would require members of both parties. McCain has been recuperating from cancer treatments but is a veteran of efforts to pass immigration reform.
“While reaching a deal cannot come soon enough for America’s service members, the current political reality demands bipartisan cooperation to address the impending expiration of the DACA program and secure the southern border,” McCain said in the statement.
“White House rejects bipartisan immigration plan pushed by McCain, Coons
By Tal Kopan and Kaitlan Collins, CNN
The White House is dismissing an immigration deal brokered by a bipartisan group of lawmakers as a non-starter just hours before it is expected to be formally introduced in the Senate.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons are slated to introduce a bill Monday that would grant eventual citizenship to young undocumented immigrants who have been in the country since 2013 and came to the US as children, but it does not address all of the President’s stated immigration priorities, like ending family-based immigration categories — which Republicans call “chain migration” — or ending the diversity visa program.
It also would not immediately authorize the $30 billion that Trump is seeking to build the border wall, instead greenlighting a study of border security needs. The bill would also seek to address the number of undocumented immigrants staying in the US by increasing the number of resources for the immigration courts, where cases can take years to finish.
The bill is a companion to a piece of House legislation that has 54 co-sponsors split evenly by party.
A White House official rebuffed the effort, telling CNN that it takes “a lot of effort” to write up a bill worse than the Graham-Durbin immigration bill, but somehow “this one is worse.”
Trump tweeted about the latest immigration efforts Monday, writing, “Any deal on DACA that does not include STRONG border security and the desperately needed WALL is a total waste of time. March 5th is rapidly approaching and the Dems seem not to care about DACA. Make a deal!”
But Coons defended the bill in a conference call with reporters on Monday, calling it a “strong starting place” and a “fresh start” if other talks about immigration don’t result in a compromise.
The White House has been aware of the legislation introduced by Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd and California Democrat Rep. Pete Aguilar for weeks, with officials being informed while it was being drafted and with chief of staff John Kelly and legislative director Marc Short being briefed on the bill in meetings with members of Congress, including Hurd and Aguilar. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, of which Aguilar is a key member, has been especially supportive of the bill as a compromise, as have moderate Republicans.
But the President has not embraced the proposal, largely for what it leaves out. Hurd and Aguilar, who first described their bill to CNN, have said they intentionally did not seek to appropriate specific funds in their proposal, as neither are on appropriations committees. They have called their bill a “foundation” for conversations about a big deal.
For the border, the bill would create a “smart wall” where the Department of Homeland Security would gain “operational control” of the border by the end of 2020 through “technology, physical barriers, levees, tools and other devices.” On family-based migration, the bill doesn’t make explicit reference to sponsoring relatives, but the bill authors say that existing law would prohibit parents of these individuals who came to the US illegally to apply for a visa to come back without returning to their home country for at least 10 years before applying and the bill does nothing to erase that requirement.
Coons said that McCain approached him about being a co-sponsor, saying that McCain is deeply concerned about the lack of future certainty for the military because of a budget impasse and the lack of a broader deal on immigration issues, and wanted to find a partner to introduce the Hurd-Aguilar bill in the Senate as part of that effort.
The Delaware Democrat said he recognizes that the bill does not appropriate any money for the border security piece and he’d be willing to look at doing that as well — and he said he’s still committed to the bipartisan Senate talks and is hopeful those could have a breakthrough and a base bill he’d support by the end of the week.
“I remain hopeful that that group can produce a bipartisan deal that is broader than what the McCain-Coons bill is this morning, but in the very real possibility that that does not come together, I think the (bill) is a good base bill,” Coons said. “I view the McCain-Coons proposal as a reasonable base bill that would get done the two things we need to get done: … the status of the Dreamers and border security.”
Coons also had some harsh words for the President, saying that despite the White House saying his proposal is the only one that can move forward, “I’m sorry, that’s not how the Senate works.” He rejected White House criticism of his proposal and said the “worst” thing would be failing to act or only doing a one-year stopgap.
“The President prides himself on being the great dealmaker,” Coons said. “Sometimes he makes the greatest contribution when he makes his position known and steps back … he is least constructive when he does what he did a few weeks ago.”
McCain said in a statement the new bill has “broad support.”
The Senate is expected to turn to a floor debate on immigration soon, and Coons has been part of a group of bipartisan lawmakers that have been meeting for weeks to try to find a compromise that could pass the vote with more than the 60 votes needed to advance legislation, which would require members of both parties. McCain has been recuperating from cancer treatments but is a veteran of efforts to pass immigration reform.
“While reaching a deal cannot come soon enough for America’s service members, the current political reality demands bipartisan cooperation to address the impending expiration of the DACA program and secure the southern border,” McCain said in the statement.
White House rejects bipartisan immigration plan pushed by McCain, Coons
By Tal Kopan and Kaitlan Collins, CNN
The White House is dismissing an immigration deal brokered by a bipartisan group of lawmakers as a non-starter just hours before it is expected to be formally introduced in the Senate.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons are slated to introduce a bill Monday that would grant eventual citizenship to young undocumented immigrants who have been in the country since 2013 and came to the US as children, but it does not address all of the President’s stated immigration priorities, like ending family-based immigration categories — which Republicans call “chain migration” — or ending the diversity visa program.
It also would not immediately authorize the $30 billion that Trump is seeking to build the border wall, instead greenlighting a study of border security needs. The bill would also seek to address the number of undocumented immigrants staying in the US by increasing the number of resources for the immigration courts, where cases can take years to finish.
The bill is a companion to a piece of House legislation that has 54 co-sponsors split evenly by party.
A White House official rebuffed the effort, telling CNN that it takes “a lot of effort” to write up a bill worse than the Graham-Durbin immigration bill, but somehow “this one is worse.”
Trump tweeted about the latest immigration efforts Monday, writing, “Any deal on DACA that does not include STRONG border security and the desperately needed WALL is a total waste of time. March 5th is rapidly approaching and the Dems seem not to care about DACA. Make a deal!”
But Coons defended the bill in a conference call with reporters on Monday, calling it a “strong starting place” and a “fresh start” if other talks about immigration don’t result in a compromise.
The White House has been aware of the legislation introduced by Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd and California Democrat Rep. Pete Aguilar for weeks, with officials being informed while it was being drafted and with chief of staff John Kelly and legislative director Marc Short being briefed on the bill in meetings with members of Congress, including Hurd and Aguilar. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, of which Aguilar is a key member, has been especially supportive of the bill as a compromise, as have moderate Republicans.
But the President has not embraced the proposal, largely for what it leaves out. Hurd and Aguilar, who first described their bill to CNN, have said they intentionally did not seek to appropriate specific funds in their proposal, as neither are on appropriations committees. They have called their bill a “foundation” for conversations about a big deal.
For the border, the bill would create a “smart wall” where the Department of Homeland Security would gain “operational control” of the border by the end of 2020 through “technology, physical barriers, levees, tools and other devices.” On family-based migration, the bill doesn’t make explicit reference to sponsoring relatives, but the bill authors say that existing law would prohibit parents of these individuals who came to the US illegally to apply for a visa to come back without returning to their home country for at least 10 years before applying and the bill does nothing to erase that requirement.
Coons said that McCain approached him about being a co-sponsor, saying that McCain is deeply concerned about the lack of future certainty for the military because of a budget impasse and the lack of a broader deal on immigration issues, and wanted to find a partner to introduce the Hurd-Aguilar bill in the Senate as part of that effort.
The Delaware Democrat said he recognizes that the bill does not appropriate any money for the border security piece and he’d be willing to look at doing that as well — and he said he’s still committed to the bipartisan Senate talks and is hopeful those could have a breakthrough and a base bill he’d support by the end of the week.
“I remain hopeful that that group can produce a bipartisan deal that is broader than what the McCain-Coons bill is this morning, but in the very real possibility that that does not come together, I think the (bill) is a good base bill,” Coons said. “I view the McCain-Coons proposal as a reasonable base bill that would get done the two things we need to get done: … the status of the Dreamers and border security.”
Coons also had some harsh words for the President, saying that despite the White House saying his proposal is the only one that can move forward, “I’m sorry, that’s not how the Senate works.” He rejected White House criticism of his proposal and said the “worst” thing would be failing to act or only doing a one-year stopgap.
“The President prides himself on being the great dealmaker,” Coons said. “Sometimes he makes the greatest contribution when he makes his position known and steps back … he is least constructive when he does what he did a few weeks ago.”
McCain said in a statement the new bill has “broad support.”
The Senate is expected to turn to a floor debate on immigration soon, and Coons has been part of a group of bipartisan lawmakers that have been meeting for weeks to try to find a compromise that could pass the vote with more than the 60 votes needed to advance legislation, which would require members of both parties. McCain has been recuperating from cancer treatments but is a veteran of efforts to pass immigration reform.
“While reaching a deal cannot come soon enough for America’s service members, the current political reality demands bipartisan cooperation to address the impending expiration of the DACA program and secure the southern border,” McCain said in the statement.
“White House rejects bipartisan immigration plan pushed by McCain, Coons
By Tal Kopan and Kaitlan Collins, CNN
The White House is dismissing an immigration deal brokered by a bipartisan group of lawmakers as a non-starter just hours before it is expected to be formally introduced in the Senate.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons are slated to introduce a bill Monday that would grant eventual citizenship to young undocumented immigrants who have been in the country since 2013 and came to the US as children, but it does not address all of the President’s stated immigration priorities, like ending family-based immigration categories — which Republicans call “chain migration” — or ending the diversity visa program.
It also would not immediately authorize the $30 billion that Trump is seeking to build the border wall, instead greenlighting a study of border security needs. The bill would also seek to address the number of undocumented immigrants staying in the US by increasing the number of resources for the immigration courts, where cases can take years to finish.
The bill is a companion to a piece of House legislation that has 54 co-sponsors split evenly by party.
A White House official rebuffed the effort, telling CNN that it takes “a lot of effort” to write up a bill worse than the Graham-Durbin immigration bill, but somehow “this one is worse.”
Trump tweeted about the latest immigration efforts Monday, writing, “Any deal on DACA that does not include STRONG border security and the desperately needed WALL is a total waste of time. March 5th is rapidly approaching and the Dems seem not to care about DACA. Make a deal!”
But Coons defended the bill in a conference call with reporters on Monday, calling it a “strong starting place” and a “fresh start” if other talks about immigration don’t result in a compromise.
The White House has been aware of the legislation introduced by Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd and California Democrat Rep. Pete Aguilar for weeks, with officials being informed while it was being drafted and with chief of staff John Kelly and legislative director Marc Short being briefed on the bill in meetings with members of Congress, including Hurd and Aguilar. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, of which Aguilar is a key member, has been especially supportive of the bill as a compromise, as have moderate Republicans.
But the President has not embraced the proposal, largely for what it leaves out. Hurd and Aguilar, who first described their bill to CNN, have said they intentionally did not seek to appropriate specific funds in their proposal, as neither are on appropriations committees. They have called their bill a “foundation” for conversations about a big deal.
For the border, the bill would create a “smart wall” where the Department of Homeland Security would gain “operational control” of the border by the end of 2020 through “technology, physical barriers, levees, tools and other devices.” On family-based migration, the bill doesn’t make explicit reference to sponsoring relatives, but the bill authors say that existing law would prohibit parents of these individuals who came to the US illegally to apply for a visa to come back without returning to their home country for at least 10 years before applying and the bill does nothing to erase that requirement.
Coons said that McCain approached him about being a co-sponsor, saying that McCain is deeply concerned about the lack of future certainty for the military because of a budget impasse and the lack of a broader deal on immigration issues, and wanted to find a partner to introduce the Hurd-Aguilar bill in the Senate as part of that effort.
The Delaware Democrat said he recognizes that the bill does not appropriate any money for the border security piece and he’d be willing to look at doing that as well — and he said he’s still committed to the bipartisan Senate talks and is hopeful those could have a breakthrough and a base bill he’d support by the end of the week.
“I remain hopeful that that group can produce a bipartisan deal that is broader than what the McCain-Coons bill is this morning, but in the very real possibility that that does not come together, I think the (bill) is a good base bill,” Coons said. “I view the McCain-Coons proposal as a reasonable base bill that would get done the two things we need to get done: … the status of the Dreamers and border security.”
Coons also had some harsh words for the President, saying that despite the White House saying his proposal is the only one that can move forward, “I’m sorry, that’s not how the Senate works.” He rejected White House criticism of his proposal and said the “worst” thing would be failing to act or only doing a one-year stopgap.
“The President prides himself on being the great dealmaker,” Coons said. “Sometimes he makes the greatest contribution when he makes his position known and steps back … he is least constructive when he does what he did a few weeks ago.”
McCain said in a statement the new bill has “broad support.”
The Senate is expected to turn to a floor debate on immigration soon, and Coons has been part of a group of bipartisan lawmakers that have been meeting for weeks to try to find a compromise that could pass the vote with more than the 60 votes needed to advance legislation, which would require members of both parties. McCain has been recuperating from cancer treatments but is a veteran of efforts to pass immigration reform.
“While reaching a deal cannot come soon enough for America’s service members, the current political reality demands bipartisan cooperation to address the impending expiration of the DACA program and secure the southern border,” McCain said in the statement.
***********************************
I doubt that the Dems are going to force a shutdown over Dreamers this time around. But, that doesn’t mean that the “Bakuninist Wing” of the House GOP won’t shoot themselves and the party in the foot.
Dreamers appear sentenced to limbo as long as the GOP controls all the political branches of Government.
“MADISON – Amid all the defeats and disasters Democrats have suffered in Wisconsin, there’s one spot on the map that gets brighter for them all the time.
The capital city and its suburbs comprise one of America’s premier “blue” bastions.
Dane County’s liberal tilt is nothing new.
But obscured by the Democratic Party’s statewide losses since 2010 is the rapid, relentless growth of its voting power.
Fueled by a tech boomlet, Dane is adding people at a faster rate than any county its size between Minnesota and Massachusetts. Between 2015 and 2016, it accounted for almost 80% of Wisconsin’s net population growth and is now home to more than 530,000 people.
“It is just stunning what has happened,” said economic consultant and former university administrator David J. Ward, describing a physical transformation that includes an apartment-building spree in downtown Madison as well as Epic Systems’ giant tech campus in suburban Verona, a new-economy wonderland where more than 9,000 employees (many in their 20s) work in a chain of whimsical buildings planted in old farm fields.
What’s going on in Dane County is gradually altering the electoral math in Wisconsin. Dane has been growing about four points more Democratic with each presidential contest since 1980, while adding thousands more voters every year. As a result, it packs an ever stronger political punch. Democrats won the county’s presidential vote by a margin of roughly 20,000 votes in 1984, 50,000 votes in 1996, 90,000 votes in 2004 and almost 150,000 votes in 2016.
Mobilized against a lightning-rod Republican governor (Scott Walker) and president (Donald Trump), these voters are poised to turn out in droves for the mid-term elections this fall. Organized political groups and informal political networks proliferate here, some with deep roots, some triggered by the state’s labor and recall fights, some sparked by Bernie Sanders’ presidential run last year, some spurred by Trump’s election.
“I’ve never seen this level of political activity,” said Democrat Mark Pocan, who represents Madison and the surrounding area in Congress.
Part of an ongoing series: Wisconsin in the age of Trump.
Craig Gilbert of the Journal Sentinel is on a fellowship established through Marquette University Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education. The fellowship is aimed at providing support for journalism projects on issues of civic importance. All the work is done under the direction of Journal Sentinel editors.
“Right now, as (county) clerk, I have to assume crazy turnout,” said Scott McDonell, who orders the election ballots for Dane County. “Because people are so intense about wanting to send a message.”
Dane is the embodiment of some of the Democratic Party’s rosiest national trend lines: a growing appeal to the young and college-educated and a growing dominance in prosperous metropolitan areas.
But Dane also points to the double-edged nature of that appeal. A parade of GOP victories in 2010, the 2012 recall fight, 2014 and 2016 shows that this area’s rising clout guarantees nothing for Democrats when it’s offset by deep losses in small towns and northern blue-collar battlegrounds like Green Bay and Wausau. In 2016, Dane delivered a bigger vote margin for Hillary Clinton than it did for Barack Obama, but Clinton lost the state thanks to her (and her party’s) epic collapse in rural counties.
These two dynamics — Dane getting bigger and bluer, northern Wisconsin getting redder — are at the heart of the battle for Wisconsin.
Some strategists in both parties believe the two are at least partly connected; that Democrats’ increasing reliance on Madison (and Milwaukee, the party’s other anchor) makes it harder for them to compete for more conservative blue-collar and rural voters.
When Madison Mayor Paul Soglin joined the vast Democratic field for governor last month, Walker immediately played the “Madison” card.
“The last thing we need is more Madison in our lives,” said Walker on Twitter, saying “businesses have left and murders have gone up.”
Democrats scoffed at Walker’s grim portrayal of the city and accused him of beating up on a place that embodies the economic success he covets for the state.
The episode set off a round of feuding over whether Madison is a damaging symbol for Democrats because of its left-wing image or an increasingly attractive one because of its economic vigor.
“We’re obviously doing something right and a lot better than the way (Walker) is doing it for the rest of the state. And it’s not because we’re the home of the state university and it’s not because of state government, because he has spent the better part of the last seven years strangling them,” said Soglin in an interview, arguing that his city represents a growth model of investing in education and quality of life and “creating a great place where people want to be.” (He contrasted it to the use of massive subsidies to bring FoxConn to Wisconsin).
Dane County Executive Joe Parisi, who also bristled at Walker’s tweet, pointed to the state’s new ad campaign to draw millennials from Chicago, noting the Madison area is the one place in Wisconsin attracting that age group in significant numbers. (Many of Epic’s employees settle in downtown Madison and take a dedicated bus every day to the Verona campus.)
“Guess where millennials want to live? In communities that are tolerant, that invest in quality of life, that care about their environment, that provide recreational opportunities for them, a thriving downtown — everything Dane County has. We’ve worked on that,” Parisi said.
In a statement for this story, Walker political spokesman Brian Reisinger said that contrary to what his opponents say, the governor isn’t anti-Madison.
“The governor believes there are good people in Madison, like everywhere else in Wisconsin. But that doesn’t change the harm of a liberal governing philosophy that pits those hard-working families against their best interests. The governor enjoys a Badger game as much as anyone — the point is, Madison would be much better off if it had lower taxes and a better business environment, like the rest of Wisconsin does under his leadership.”
“It was liberal Madison politicians who gave us big budget deficits, massive tax increases, and record job loss,” Reisinger said.
But if the story of Madison figures in the campaign debate this year, the conversation could be awkward for both sides.
Walker is faced with the inconvenient fact that Wisconsin’s fastest-growing county is a place Republicans love to put down and where his party could hardly be less popular. National studies and stories in recent years have singled out Madison as an emerging technology hub for health care, life sciences, even gaming — much of the growth rooted in the University of Wisconsin and its myriad research centers. Madison routinely makes “best cities” lists. Nonstop flights to San Francisco are starting this summer, a sign of its tech growth. Dane has added far more private-sector jobs than any other Wisconsin county since Walker took office. And in a state where more people are moving out than moving in, it has experienced a net in-migration of more than 20,000 since 2010. No other county in the state is close.
You could argue that the tech-fueled expansion in greater Madison is the state’s brightest economic story, and Epic, the health care software firm that has been adding almost 1,000 employees annually, its brightest business story. But Walker, an aggressive cheerleader for Wisconsin’s economy, has not mentioned either in his eight “state of the state” speeches.
Meanwhile, this area’s prosperity creates its own “messaging” challenge for Democrats, who are painfully aware that “Madison” comes with baggage for some Wisconsinites, whether they see it as a symbol of government or left-wing politics or intellectual elitism or urban culture.
“It’s all of that combined, which in my mind is why it’s so powerful. It’s whatever part of it irks people,” said UW-Madison political scientist Kathy Cramer, who chronicled perceptions of the state’s capital in her book, “The Politics of Resentment,” about rural attitudes toward cities and their effect on politics.
Economics may be adding another wrinkle to this dynamic. Cramer said that Madison’s relative prosperity has the potential to provoke either “pride” or “resentment” elsewhere in the state.
Zach Brandon, a Democrat and head of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, laments Madison-bashing, but said, “Madison, too, has to make sure it’s telling a story that doesn’t separate us from the rest of Wisconsin.”
Thanks to Trump’s election, Walker’s victories and even the attention Cramer’s book has received here and nationally, voters and activists here seem more sensitive than ever to their cultural and political distance from some parts of the state and how that can influence elections.
“You get up in these others parts (of) Wisconsin and they don’t like Madison people,” said Ronald Stucki, a Democratic voter in Dane County, who was interviewed as he spoke to a party volunteer canvassing in the city last month.
Some Madison progressives said they hoped Democrats don’t nominate someone from Madison against Walker because they feared it would make it harder to win votes elsewhere. The party’s very crowded field includes several Madison candidates, and the Democratic U.S. senator on the 2018 ballot, Tammy Baldwin, is from Madison.
(The actual history of Madison Democrats in big statewide races isn’t a bad one at all: winners include Baldwin for Senate in 2012, Russ Feingold for Senate in 1992, 1998 and 2004, and Jim Doyle for governor in 2002 and 2006; losers include Feingold for Senate in 2010 and 2016 and Mary Burke for governor in 2014.)
There is no way to really measure whether, or how much, the Democratic Party’s growing reliance on Madison and Milwaukee has contributed to the party’s struggles elsewhere in the state. Both trends are part of a growing partisan divide nationally between cities and small towns and between college grads and blue-collar voters.
In private conversations, GOP strategists differ over how to view the inexorable growth in Dane’s voting power. Some say it puts Democrats in a political box, dragging them further to left and out of touch with “average” voters. They also note that it’s little use to Democrats in legislative races since that vote is so concentrated geographically.
But some in the GOP are troubled by the trend lines. While many rural Republican counties are losing population, the bluest part of the state is growing the fastest — and still getting bluer. Even the burgeoning suburbs outside Madison have shifted sharply Democratic.
For many years, the Republican answer to Dane was Waukesha County, the big, ultra-red, high-turnout suburban county west of Milwaukee. But Dane has been adding more jobs and more voters than Waukesha County for many years. Since 2010, it has added five times as many people as Waukesha County. In fact, Dane’s combination of size, one-party dominance, growth and extreme turnout has few analogs anywhere in the U.S. And while Wisconsin’s rural voters have a history of swinging, the unflagging expansion of the Democrat vote around Madison is the most enduring trend anywhere on the Wisconsin political map.
What does that mean for elections beyond 2018?
Craig Gilbert talks about his Lubar Fellowship analyzing Wisconsin in the age of Trump. Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Here is how pollster Charles Franklin of the Marquette Law School quantified Dane’s trajectory: based on a nearly 40-year trend line in presidential voting, the Democratic Party’s winning margin in Dane County is growing by more than 15,000 votes every four years. That’s bigger than the winning margin in two of the state’s past five presidential contests.
Here is another way to measure it:
Back in 1980, Dane County accounted for 7% of the statewide vote and gave Democrats a 17-point advantage. When you multiply those two numbers together, it means Dane boosted the party’s statewide performance by a little more than one point. Its “value” to Democrats has quintupled since then. In 2016, Dane accounted for more than 10% of the statewide vote and voted Democratic by almost 50 points. Multiply those numbers together, and it means Dane boosted the party’s statewide performance by 5 points.
In their Wisconsin victories, Walker and Trump overcame this trend by making their own deep inroads elsewhere. But as long as it keeps getting bluer and growing faster, Dane County may become harder for Republicans to neutralize.
Craig Gilbert is reporting an ongoing series on the shifting political landscape in Wisconsin after the state helped propel Donald Trump to the White House.
A view of new apartments and construction along E. Washington Ave. in Madison. Fueled by a tech boomlet, Dane is adding people at a faster rate than any county its size between Minnesota and Massachusetts. Between 2015 and 2016, it accounted for almost 80% percent of Wisconsin’s net population growthand is now home to more than 530,000 people. As its population grows, Dane County’s voting power also growing. Michael Sears / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel”
**********************************
Energizing, registering, and “getting out the vote” are critically important. The “will of the real majority” across the country is what the GOP really fears! And, that’s what didn’t prevail in 2016! That’s why the GOP is so dedicated to voter suppression and gerrymandering! And skewing the census data against ethnic minorities and Democrat-leaning jurisdictions is high on the Trump/Sessions “suppression of democracy” agenda.
Here’s a sense of “deja vu.” When I was at U.W. Law School in the early 1970s, now Madison (and Dem Governor hopeful) Mayor Paul Soglin was one of my classmates. He actually sat in front of me in Environmental Law, although he seldom actually made a physical appearance. That’s probably because he was busy being the “Boy Wonder” progressive City Councilman who eventually ousted Madison’s arch-conservative GOP Mayor and became the “Boy Mayor” while Cathy and I were still living on Madison’s East Side.
After being out of office for a while, he made a “comeback” and is now Mayor of “MAD-CITY” again! Not a “Boy Wonder” any more. But, still “stirring up the pot.”
“Immigration negotiations: Lots of talk, little progress
By Tal Kopan, CNN
There are several groups in Congress who have been meeting regularly to try to reach a breakthrough on stalled immigration talks. But that doesn’t mean they’re making much progress.
Lawmakers are quick to bemoan the lack of forward motion on a fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, a program that protected young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children that President Donald Trump is ending.
The lack of progress stands in contrast to what Trump called in his State of the Union address Tuesday a “bipartisan approach,” despite no Democrats supporting his framework.
“We presented Congress with a detailed proposal that should be supported by both parties as a fair compromise, one where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs and must have,” he said, even as his proposal was dismissed as dead on arrival by Democrats whose votes will ultimately be needed to pass any compromise.
RELATED: What Trump’s State of the Union means for the immigration debate
Despite months of negotiations on how to preserve DACA and enact other measures like border security and White House-requested immigration overhauls, Congress still remains far from a clear path forward even as a deadline for government spending approaches.
“I wouldn’t say we’re making progress,” said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of the so-called “No. 2s” group, regular meetings of the seconds in command in both parties in both the House and Senate that have been coordinating with key administration officials.
“I would say we’re continuing, however, to try to winnow down what the discussion is about. We haven’t done it yet,” Hoyer said.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn similarly left a meeting last week of the group and characterized it as “wheel spinning.” Democrats have long complained their perception is the group mainly exists to slow down negotiations.
The circular talks, which sources in the room describe as mostly reiterations of positions that in most cases neither side is willing to cede, are indicative of a broader stalemate leading up to February 8 — when another short-term government funding bill is likely. After that, lawmakers await Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s promise to hold an open floor debate on immigration.
Likewise a group of roughly 20 bipartisan senators that formed out of the government shutdown at the last funding deadline has been meeting essentially daily to find common ground on the issue. But lawmakers in that group have similarly described a process of defining the issues, and have said their group’s work is mostly to generate ideas that will then be funneled to Cornyn and Democratic Whip Dick Durbin for further negotiation.
“We want to be deferential,” one of the group’s organizers, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, said after a meeting Monday. “We hope we might be able to be helpful to them by going through a series of concepts,” she added, saying the group had discussed various proposals out there.
Many of the lawmakers in the group have little prior specialty in immigration policy. North Dakota Democrat Sen. Heidi Heitkamp said that Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford has been working to brief the group on what the Department of Homeland Security wants out of negotiations, and the group does include one of the authors of the 2013 “Gang of Eight” immigration reform bill, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.
“I think that there’s such a discussion right now between process, how do you start, and then definitional, and I think the great work we’re doing in there is look, let’s get our facts in order, let’s get a unified sense of understanding,” Heitkamp said after one of the meetings of the group.
The groups’ efforts have attempted to find a path forward even after Trump rejected a bipartisan compromise negotiated by Durbin and a handful of other senators over months, declined a DACA for border wall offer from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and after the White House put out an aggressive framework that included a generous path to citizenship for the young undocumented immigrants but included a number of hardline requests that Democrats have said are impossible to swallow.
Some in the bipartisan group are already talking about narrowing the debate to just two issues — DACA and physical border security — even as others in the group reject that approach. Republicans like Cornyn and Lankford have said the White House’s “four pillars,” which include cuts to family migration and the diversity visa lottery and define border security broadly to include deportation authorities and other measures, have to be the starting point and can’t be narrowed down.
“If we can’t get a deal that includes that we may have to pair it down to two pillars and just do border and DACA as plan B,” Rubio told CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux on Wednesday. “But I know they’re going to try plan A first, and you know I’ve supported that and I continue to support limiting (family-based migration) to nuclear family.”
Meanwhile, the bipartisan group on the House side of the Capitol, the Problem Solvers Caucus, has proposed a compromise that hews very closely to the already-rejected proposal from Durbin, though the Senate has moved on from it. That group’s co-chairman, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, has been in touch with Collins and her Democratic co-organizer Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, about possibly bringing the two groups together to meet, the New Jersey Democrat told CNN.
All of the talk is setting the stage for a potentially messy floor debate in the Senate. Though McConnell has pledged to call something to the floor for an open debate process if no deal otherwise is reached by February 8, he has not made any statements about what he would call as a starting point. And with an open amendment process, the debate could get messy and any bill could be brought down by a poison pill amendment intentionally designed to tank the process.
Still, lawmakers are continuing to meet.
“I don’t know,” Durbin said of whether the plan to funnel ideas through him and Cornyn will work. “We’ve never tried anything like this. But I’m hopeful, and so is he.”
As for the No. 2s meeting he’s a part of, Durbin added, “We do have some looming deadlines. I hope that moves us.”
CNN’s Lauren Fox and Phil Mattingly contributed to this report.
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I find the stated position of Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) remarkable! Rubio himself is the product of an immigrant background. So, he knows first-hand the complete falsity of the GOP’s (essentially racist) claims about the “bogus” dangers of “Family Migration” (often pejoratively called “chain migration” by GOP restrictionists); the important positive role that family immigration plays in many ethnic communities; the important role that Family Migration has played in the United States and our economy as a whole since 1965; and the overall benefits of more, not less, legal immigration.
Yet he somehow feels that his own personal success has so far removed him from the immigrant community and the national interest that he can join the current elitist White Nationalist charade in bashing Family Migration! Pretty sad indeed.
“Hispanic Caucus vents at Democratic leadership over shutdown, DACA strategy
By: Tal Kopan, CNN
Hispanic Democrats on Tuesday had a combination venting and strategy session with Democratic congressional leaders as they expressed frustration that there still has not been a resolution for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer got an earful about the handling of the recent government shutdown and recent comments about future strategy, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said.
“I think there’s a lot of conversations about, where is our leverage and how are we going to use it?” said California Democrat Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán.
Barragán said she specifically raised comments Schumer made in The Washington Post that “can’t just let (DACA) occupy the whole stage,” referring to Democratic strategy in red states. She said she told Schumer her community felt that sent a message they weren’t a priority.
“He stood by his comment,” Barragán said of his response. Generally, she added, “He said, ‘I can understand the pain people are feeling and the frustration’ and certainly understood why people felt disappointed in where we are today. Although I think the message is, ‘We’re better off than we were.’ So I’m not sure there’s complete agreement on all fronts.”
The “tension,” as Barragán put it, was indicative of raw nerves among the Democratic caucus about whether leadership is fully committed to using all points of leverage to push for a solution on DACA, the program being ended by President Donald Trump that protected young undocumented immigrants from deportation.
One source in the room speaking anonymously to be candid called the meeting a “waste of time” that was “all filler.”
Another called it equal parts frustration and cheerleading, with an understanding that Republicans remain the main obstacle to deal with.
Shutdown strategy
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer called the meeting “candid,” saying the caucus is “correctly frustrated” about the situation for recipients of DACA.
“I think there were obviously some sentiments in the meeting, as you well know, that were, ‘I’m not sure we’re following the right strategy here,'” Hoyer told reporters after the meeting. “There was a candid discussion about why the strategy was being pursued and what was being pursued and what opportunities and challenges were, I think people came out with some degree of appreciation.”
Multiple lawmakers said there was frustration as Democrats rejected government funding on a Friday but voted to reopen the government on Monday when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to open debate on immigration on the Senate floor in February.
Barragán noted there is no commitment to an immigration vote in the House.”It’s very frustrating on the House side because it appears there’s a different situation in the House than in the Senate, we haven’t gotten any kind of commitment on the House side,” Barragán said. “And so even though on the Senate side, Sen. Schumer talks about how they have that commitment and he believes they’re going to get a vote, I think it still fails to take into consideration that strategy on the House side.”
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who has long served as a voice for immigration advocates in the House, said many in the room “were disappointed” in a “lack of communication” regarding the shutdown. But he also said the focus was on moving forward.
“Democrats, we’re good at fighting and I also think we’re good at mending fences, and that’s what we’re doing here,” Gutierrez told reporters. “We’re trying to figure out a way forward. … I think (Dem leaders) are committed and this isn’t over. Look, trip, you get up and you go back to fight, but we have a clear determination, we’re going to fight for the Dreamers.”
The chairwoman of the Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, called the session a combination of strategy and “venting, productively.”
“I didn’t see it as being negative,” she said. “It was an important place to come back after a week for folks to talk about their frustrations, to talk about what they think we haven’t done well, to talk about things that we think are working and to talk about all eyes on the House. What is the House going to do, how are we going to get them to do it and where are we?”
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I think the hard answer to Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s question is “You won’t get the House to ‘do what you want.'”Not as long as the GOP is in the majority, the White Nationalist/Bakuninist Block of the House GOP remains intact, and “Spineless Paul” Ryan (or any other GOP Representative) remains Speaker.
In simple terms, Dems and Dreamers, you’re going to have to win some elections and get some control to bring this to a conclusion that won’t involve “giving in” to the whole (or huge chunks of the) White Nationalist, anti-American, anti-growth restrictionist agenda! Minority parties pushing minority platforms seldom get what they want.
Instead of uselessly “ranting” and “venting” at each other, Dreamers and Dems need to work harder to get out the vote (a few more well-placed Hispanic, African-American, and other minority votes could have changed the results of the last election) and eventually win control of something on the national level!
Clearly, while Dreamers and their cause remain popular with the overall public, there is a “vocal minority” essentially White, racist, xenophobic “core” out there that is vehemently opposed to progress and a diverse society and puts their “hate/turn back the clock agenda” at the top of their “issues list.” That’s why most GOP legislators, particularly in the House, see little or no “downside risk” to “stiffing” Dreamers — particularly if the only “downside” is an unpopular and unsustainable “Government shutdown” by the Senate Dems.
Internal bickering is not a useful substitute for putting energy and talent into “grass-roots” organizations that appeal to voters, incorporate solutions to local and regional issues, and thereby win elections! Without “victories in the political arena,” there will be no “magic strategies” that will produce decent immigration reform — for the Dreamers or anyone else who cares about America’s future as a vibrant, forward-looking “nation of immigrants.”
“Senator Chuck Schumer (R-N.Y.) has dismissed the White House’s new Framework on Immigration Reform & Border security as a “wish list” for hard-liners. According to Schumer, Trump is using protection for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) participants as “a tool to tear apart our legal immigration system and adopt the wish list that anti-immigration hardliners have advocated for years.”
But Schumer’s own DACA proposal, which he put together as part of the Gang of Six, was just as unacceptable to Trump as Trump’s current proposal is to Schumer.
Schumer rejected Trump’s previous proposal, which was to establish a program for the 690,000 DACA participants that would continue their temporary legal status, and proposed a legalization program for a couple of million Dreamers. Moreover, he offered Trump just $1.591 billion for building a wall, which is only a small fraction of the amount he needs; and did not meaningfully address his chain migration concerns.That was not the first time Schumer has advocated a position he knew would be rejected. Four years ago, he moved his immigration reform bill, S.744, through the Senate despite the fact that it was opposed by 70 percent of the Senate Republicans. It was dead on arrival in the Republican controlled House.
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This does not have to be an “either or” situation. The visas currently given to extended family members could be transitioned to a merit-based point system that would give extra credit for family ties to a citizen or LPR. Under such a system, aliens who have family ties would be chosen ahead of aliens with similar qualifications who do not have family ties.”
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Go on over to The Hill at the above link to read Nolan’s complete analysis!
Seems like an idea worth exploring, particularly since current negotiations appear to be running up against a “brick wall.” No, it won’t resolve all of the outstanding issues. But trying to work the concepts of “merit and family” into one system could be a starting point. After all, it’s hard to argue that “family” doesn’t have “merit” — both for the individuals involved and for the U.S.
Capitol Police remove a banner as members of the Catholic community and supporters of DACA recipients are arrested during a protest on Capitol Hill this week. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) flanked by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), left, and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.), speaks with reporters this week about school safety measures in response to the Parkland, Fla., massacre that left 17 dead. The Republicans made no mention of immigration reform. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
