Update:
And, on the second bill, TalkingsPoinsMemo reports,
In a vote likely to exacerbate their party’s demographic problems, House Republicans passed legislation on Friday night to effectively require the deportation of everyone in the U.S. illegally, including young people brought as children who attended college or joined the military.
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It passed by a vote of 216 to 192. Eleven Republicans voted no and four Democrats voted yes.
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The bill serves a symbolic rebuke of President Barack Obama for his current and upcoming executive actions to relieve undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation. It passed shortly after the House passed 223-189 a separate GOP-led border funding proposal, which gives House Republicans the opportunity to go home for recess and say they acted on the child migrant crisis.
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“In the end, the Republican position on immigration can be summed up as: deport ’em all,” said Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL). “You know it is suicide as a political strategy, but you continue to say deport ’em all.”
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Both bills are dead on arrival in the Senate. Obama slammed them as “extreme and unworkable” and promised to veto them if they land on his desk.
Original Post:
After dillydallying — i.e. doing nothing — for over a year on immigration reform; after advancing a lawsuit against the President for using executive orders to do the things Congress failed to do; after failing to pass the GOP’s own watered-down, ineffective version of a bill to address border security, specifically the flood of young immigrants at the border; after in effect encouraging the President to act alone to fix the problem (“and then we will sue you for it”); after then giving in to the extreme wing of their Party — i.e. placate Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Steve King, et al — by inserting into the bill, as the President says, the “most extreme and unworkable portions” of a bill that they know will go “nowhere” — except to his desk for a presidential veto, guess what: The Republicans did it again, BIGTIME!
Late Friday evening, for show and politics while trying desperately to go on their cherished five-week recess, House Republicans were voting on two bills — partisan legislation — which they know are going nowhere fast.
A few minutes ago, at 8:51 PM EDT, the Washington Post reported:
House Republicans managed Friday to overcome deep divisions within the party and passed a measure to address the child-migrant surge at the U.S.-Mexico border.
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The bill would provide emergency funding to deal with the crisis and speed up the deportations of most border crossers. A second measure, scheduled to be voted later Friday, would rescind President Obama’s authority to decide whether to deport certain illegal immigrants in the United States.
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The measures are unlikely to ever become law, as the White House, most Democrats and immigration advocates strongly oppose the proposals.
While this bill could have had some merit — albeit pretty much neutered by Republicans — what a shame Republicans decided to play political football with it and “killed it before it even arrived.”
Can’t wait to see the contents of that “second measure” that is being “debated” as we speak.
Who would blame the President now for doing what any executive would do to fix a problem of such a gravity and urgency that it cannot wait for those who were supposed to address it in the first place to return to work and probably dillydally for another few months? Of course we know who would, and will, and sue him, again, for doing his job.
Added:
But passage of the bill is nonetheless a big success for House Republicans, who will now be able to go on a five-week recess having said they took action to secure the border and deal with a wave of child immigrants that have overwhelmed authorities.
Whoopee!
Isn’t his what is called a Pyrrhic victory?
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