GOP Goes To Obstruction of Sane Immigration Bill To Ding Biden - Under Orders From Trump

                                                                                    

                          "Now none of those brown people can get into my world!"

                                                                                

"As far as I'm concerned the Republicans can now shut their mouths about any issues at the border. They had their opportunity to pass something more far reaching than anything ever proposed before and instead they chose to bow down to their corrupt narcissistic psychopath cult leader." - Commenter on Washington Post today

The headline was fairly clear on page A4 of yesterday's WSJ:

BORDER DEAL FACES DEFEAT AS GOP BALKS

And the reasons are clear as well. With the economy humming, many more jobs added and inflation going down - with Fed interest rate cuts on the horizon - the Reeps are needing another way to ding Biden. Also, they have their marching order from the overgrown toddler traitor Trump to scuttle any and all such immigration bills that might in any way alleviate the influx of migrants.  Why? Well, duh, because Trump knows it's the only thing left to keep Biden's poll numbers underwater and especially below his.  This as too many Americans continue to be blase about the future of the country and Trump's threat to it, eg.

Fascism

Why are Too Many Americans Ignoring the Ongoing Collapse of Democracy in the US?

We note that Democrats currently have a 51-49 majority in the Senate and the bill now on offer - not a perfect bill but a sane one - needs 60 votes to advance. Any deal was always going to be a tough sell, after decades of no progress on immigration law. This round was made more difficult by election- year posturing and Traitor Insurrectionist Trump’s stiff opposition. Even if the measure managed to pass the Democratic- led Senate—no sure thing—it would face outright hostility in the GOP-led House.

Indeed, a statement from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) and other party leaders called the Senate bill “riddled with loopholes” and said it was “dead on arrival”

 But even the Wall Street Journal Editorial (p. A14) yesterday sought to scold the GOP-MAGA Reepos into sanity noting:

"Do Republicans want to better secure the U.S. border, or do they want to keep what has become an open sore festering for another year as an election issue? That’s the choice presented to Congress this week with the rollout of the Senate’s bipartisan border security bill, and we’ll soon learn what the GOP really wants.

By any honest reckoning, this is the most restrictive migrant legislation in decades. Previous immigration talks have involved trading security measures for legalizing more immigration. There is little of the latter in this bill—nothing for nearly all of the Dreamers who were brought here illegally as children, no general pathway to citizenship or green cards for most illegal immigrants already in the U.S.

This is almost entirely a border security bill, and its provisions include long-time GOP priorities that the party’s restrictionists could never have passed only a few months ago."  

 In other words, the bill before congress now is ideally suited to tamp down the flood of migrants pouring into the country.  The bill's plusses are well articulated in the Journal's editorial (ibid.):

“The new bill raises the bar for that initial border screening for credible fear to a “reasonable possibility” of persecution. Toughening the asylum standard was a priority of the Trump Administration, but a statutory change is needed to make it permanent. Migrants will have to show they couldn’t have moved elsewhere in their own country to avoid persecution before seeking refuge in the U.S.

The bill also includes an expedited review process for asylum with a stay-or-deport decision within 90-180 days. There is money for 50,000 detention beds while migrants are awaiting review. If there are more migrants arriving than can be detained, the overflow will be enrolled in mandatory alternatives-to-detention programs that use tools such as ankle bracelets or reporting curfews. No more catch and release without consequences. The bill also reforms humanitarian parole. Migrants will no long be able to register using the Biden CBP One App to gain free entry at a border crossing and an immediate work permit.”  

I mean, if the conservative WSJ can be for this bill, why not the Reeps?  After all, it delivers nearly all of what  they've been yapping for the past ten years.  The core reason for the obstruction was given less than a week ago when Texas Rep. Troy Nehls, in a comment to CNN, blabbered:  

"I'm not willing to do too damned much right now to help Joe Biden's approval rating."  

In other words, he wants to do everything possible to ensure a two-bit traitor who's vowed to burn the constitution and rule like Hitler gets into power again.  Then to carry out his sordid plans for retribution and vengeance while letting Americans' pocket book issues rot, the stock market crater and inflation soar (especially after he imposes 10% tariffs on all foreign goods).  

So no surprise we see the House Reeptards going all in via a desperate campaign to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for "egregious misconduct" for failing to shut the porous Southern border.  This despite the fact that numerous constitutional scholars are adamant that the Reepos' effort doesn't meet the constitutional standards for "high crimes and misdemeanors."

But the Reeps don't care, given they are Trump knob polishers who will willingly demean themselves to extol a pervert and seditionist.  Trump, meanwhile, has been furiously lobbying all the GOP lawmakers - despite he's an out-of -office loser - to dash any compromise bill that might work.  The reason?  The Turd wants to campaign against Biden on the issue and also be free - if elected (god forbid) - to impose his own draconian, unconstitutional plans.

Let's also remind people, given so many forget the Trump years, that in 2019 Trump killed a more modest immigration compromise during a month long government shutdown incited by congressional refusal to fund the border wall, Which, incidentally, was one of his 2016 campaign promises i.e. to get Mexico to pay for such a wall. A question here for anyone considering voting Trump: How did that work out?

Reep scuttling of sound border bills even preceded the advent of Trump.  A decade ago, 14 Republican senators joined all Democrats in a 68-32 vote for a bipartisan measure providing a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally.  It resulted from months of negotiations, yet then GOP House Speaker John Boehner refused to bring it to the floor.  He wanted no more legislative wins for Obama. 

That cowardice helped set the stage for Trump, especially after the traitor tried to smear Obama with bollocks that he lacked U.S. citizenship - being born in Hawaii.  That unleashed the current cowardice permeating the GOP that sees no one with any cojones prepared to defy Trump.  Thus the House GOP, for example, finds itself acting like a branch of the Trump campaign instead of an independent, separate branch of the U.S. government.  

Yes, American voters will see the border crisis worsen over the coming months, but it is well they know the root source of this moral morass: Donald Trump and the clueless, balless GOP wonders in thrall to him.

See Also:

In stunning vote, House fails to impeach Mayorkas over border issues

And:

House of Representatives | Republicans

House GOP’s Unprecedented Stunt To Impeach Mayorkas Fails

by Joan McCarter | February 7, 2024 - 7:58am | permalink

— from Daily Koos

In a stunning collapse, House Republicans failed Tuesday to approve the impeachment resolution against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, with four Republicans voting against it. Reps. Ken Buck of Colorado, Tom McClintock of California, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, and Blake Moore of Utah—who switched his vote at the last minute to be able to bring it to a vote again—joined Democrats to defeat the resolution.

One of those Republicans had an all-too rare moment of honesty in this debate, with McClintock calling the impeachment what it was: a “stunt.”

And:

Border Wall Absurdity Is Reaching New Heights

by Jim Hightower | February 1, 2024 - 6:24am | permalink

— from Otherwords

Excerpt:

In the 1980s, many Texans were alarmed that hordes of immigrants were fleeing Rust Belt states and pouring across the Red River to take our jobs. So my friend Steve Fromholz recommended a big beautiful wall across our northern border to keep them out.

Fromholz, a popular singer-songwriter and renowned political sprite, was ahead of his time in the political sport of wall building.

Instead of steel barriers and miles of nasty razor wire, Steve proposed preventing Yankee refugees from entering the Lone Star State by planting a 10-foot high, 10-foot thick wall of jalapeño peppers along the length of the Red River. Eat your way through and you’d be accepted as a naturalized Texan.

I thought of Steve’s impishness when I read that Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and other Republicans were concocting a whole new xenophobic bugaboo to goose up their anti-immigrant demagoguery.