Is GOP Sabotaging Itself By Rejecting Bipartisan Immigration Reform? Election Will Decide

Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma calls overhauling U.S. immigration — which hasn’t been done since the 1980s — a “Rubik’s cube.” He was the principal author of a bill to, in the words of the Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board, “tighten the legal standard for migrants claiming asylum in the U.S., while allowing an emergency border shutdown to stop the current crisis…Many voters are fed up with border sloganeering. They want to fix the problem.”

Lankford “has visited the border a dozen times while in Congress, and he spent months looking under the hood of the U.S. immigration system and trying to discern what improvements might be possible in divided government. As the politics of the border got worse for Democrats, he was able to negotiate the most conservative border bill in decades,” the WSJ observed.

It called the border bill “worth passing,” something President Trump “never came close to getting.” There was nothing in the bill “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.”

President Biden and Democrats “made concessions that infuriated the open-borders left.”

Boston College History Professor Heather Cox Richardson observed: “Because the Democrats are desperate to fund Ukraine, they were willing to give up things they had never laid on the table before, including a path to citizenship for those brought to the United States as children, making the bill that emerged from the negotiations strongly favor the Republican position on immigration. The Border Patrol Officers’ union, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal all endorsed it.”

Republicans’ refusal to pass the bill, on orders from Donald Trump who wants the issue to campaign on, is an example of the party’s “self-sabotaging,” the WSJ editorialized.

“Under current law and practice, migrants cross the border, turn themselves into border patrol agents, and claim asylum. If they pass the deliberately low bar for claiming “credible fear” of persecution, they are given a date for a future asylum hearing and released into the U.S. The wait can take years, and many never show up. This is the policy that has become known as “catch and release.”

“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.

“The bill also includes an emergency provision mandating that the border be closed if the average showing up each day for a week is 5,000. This is to stop the current mess in which border crossings are overwhelmed. If a shutdown is triggered, all migrants will be deported until the number of arrivees falls 25% and the border patrol has regained control. The provision does not mean that migration is unchecked up to 5,000 a day.”

“GOP critics of the bill are pointing to the bill’s modest expansion of legal visas—about 50,000 a year for employment and family visas. But these immigrants aren’t pouring over the border willy-nilly. They are following legal rules. Republicans claim to oppose illegal immigration, but this complaint shows that some really oppose all immigration.”

“If Republicans reject this bill, they will hand Democrats an argument that the GOP wants border chaos that they can exploit as a campaign issue. The chaos will continue for at least another year. Republicans may think they can write a better law if Mr. Trump wins in November, but don’t count on it. Democrats will again demand much more in return. If Republicans pass up this rare chance at border reform, they may not get a better one.”

The refusal of Republicans to agree to an immigration bill, the WSJ opined, not only resulted in the immediate election loss in a special NY election to fill fraudster George Santos’ seat. “Watching the GOP House, (voters) see nothing but grandstanding, internal fighting, and an inability to put together a majority for anything but gestures.”