Radio America Online News Bureau

amnesty

Battle Over the Border: What’s in the Bill and the Emergency Declaration?

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Listen to “Battle Over the Border: What’s in the Bill and the Emergency Declaration?” on Spreaker.

President Trump says he will sign the bipartisan budget bill providing almost $1.4 billion for border security but he will also declare a national emergency to give himself greater latitude for addressing the issue.

The legislation is expected to pass both chambers of Congress as very few lawmakers have a stomach for another government shutdown, but some of the president’s strongest allies are not happy with the contents of the bill.

“This certainly is not as acceptable as was advertised or previewed as recently as Tuesday. There are a number of concerning provisions,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Vaughan is fine with less money than Trump wanted. She is not OK with local governments having the power to prevent wall construction in their jurisdictions or providing legal protection to many smugglers because of language designed to shield those responsible for unaccompanied alien children at the border.

As for Trump’s emergency declaration, Vaughan expects a limited expansion of executive power.

Listen to the full podcast to hear Vaughan explain why Trump really has no choice but to sign the bill and what this deal means for the next round of the immigration debate.

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Immigration Stalemate

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The U.S. Senate rejected multiple attempts at immigration reform legislation, suggesting it is unlikely Congress can reach a deal this year that tightens up the nation’s immigration system and also clarifies the future for those holding legal status under the expiring DACA program.

President Trump announced last year that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program would expire in March 2018.  DACA is the 2012 initiative taken by President Obama to grant legal status to people in the U.S. who were brought here illegally as children.  Roughly 700,000 enrolled in DACA.

In announcing the end of DACA, President Trump made it clear he wanted Congress to address the issue through legislation and use the opportunity to make changes in immigration law such as ending the visa lottery and significantly reducing chain migration, by which family members can be sponsored by new citizens to come to the U.S.

Democrats want nothing to do with that approach, insisting only a “clean” DACA fix of simply granting legal status and a pathway to citizenship is acceptable.

In January, Democrats ended a brief government shutdown after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to allow debate on the issue in the weeks to come.  That promise was kept last week, but no bill was able to get the 60 votes needed to end debate and proceed to a final vote.

There is little likelihood that stalemate will be broken anytime soon.

“It’s unclear what will happen now, probably not much,” said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Only 39 senators voted for the bill most closely resembling President Trump’s wish list.  He wants a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million people, which includes DACA recipients and those who qualify but never enrolled.  Trump would also scrap the visa lottery and limit the chain migration policy to spouses and minor children.

He also wants $25 billion to secure the border and begin constructing major portions of a border wall.

The highly-touted “bipartisan” bill sponsored by Republicans Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Mike Rounds, R-S.D., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., fell six votes short of the 60-vote threshold.  It kept the 1.8 million number in place as well as $25 billion in border security.

However, Camarota says it fell far short in reforming the legal immigration system.

“It did not have any ending or phasing out of the chain migration categories.  And it had other things, like how priorities on enforcement would move forward and it seemed it was going to make it more difficult to enforce the law in some other areas.  So while the border might be more secure, the interior might be less secure,” said Camarota.

So why did the bill Camarota considers weaker than the Trump-backed measure get 15 more votes in a GOP-controlled Senate?  Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, says many in his party are now to the left of Barack Obama on immigration, at least compared to the parameters Obama imposed on DACA.

Camarota sees Cruz as hyperbolic in that comparison given that Obama wanted legal status and a pathway to citizenship for 10-11 million people in the U.S. illegally.  But he says Cruz does bring up an important point.

“His basic insight is not ridiculous.  If you’re the party of enforcement against amnesty, the president was agreeing to a pretty generous amnesty of 1.8 million.

“I think the reason he did that, and this is the way politics works and you have to decide what you think of it.  He thought it was the only way he could get the things that he wanted, like the reform of the legal immigration system and the wall.  The hope was that this trade-off would go through, but some of his own party and the Democrats didn’t want it,” said Camarota.

And what do the Democrats want?

“The Democrats are pretty unified that they want to keep immigration (numbers) as high as possible, letting the most number of people in and increase it.  (They want) as expansive an amnesty as possible and tend to not want to spend more on enforcement.  There are a lot of Republicans who tend to support that agenda,” said Camarota.

While the Center for Immigration Studies likes Trump’s efforts to limit chain migration, Camarota says the group has major misgivings about the president’s willingness to place the so-called Dreamers on a path to citizenship.

“One of the reasons you want to reform the chain migration system or give citizenship to DACA members is that pretty quickly it means they might be able to sponsor their parents, and the parents are the ones who brought them here.

“The whole idea of a DACA amnesty was that we’ll do this for people who aren’t to blame, but eventually it means amnesty for everyone who is to blame unless you end those categories.  Don’t allow people to sponsor their parents to come in or don’t give citizenship to the DACA recipents,” said Camarota.

With just two weeks until DACA is rescinded, Camarota says the courts may end up having a critical say in how this debate plays out.

“Although the DACA program is ending so people will not be able to renew, more than one judge as ruled – crazy as it may sound – that although it was a discretionary policy and that’s how it was sold, that the administration can’t end the program,” said Camarota.

“If, which seems likely, the administration can overcome the ridiculous judicial activism that says they can’t end the program, then it would put more pressure on Democrats and then we might see some meaningful reform,” said Camarota.

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Trump Blasted from Right Over Immigration Blueprint

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Immigration policy conservatives are giving President Trump’s immigration reform blueprint a thumbs down after the plan moves to the left on two key issues, leaving activists fearing a more timid final bill and no end in sight to the dangerous flood of illegal immigration into the United States.

The Trump framework focuses on four key areas: spending $25 billion on border security including additional portions of a wall, extending legal status and a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who either enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program or are eligible for it, limiting chain migration to only spouses and minor children, and ending the visa lottery.

The Center for Immigration Studies, or CIS, sees two major problems with Trump’s more moderate approach: a sudden embrace of amnesty and a refusal to tighten the screws enough on chain migration.

CIS Research Fellow Andrew Arthur says Trump’s offer of a pathway to citizenship goes far beyond the DACA recipents and will ultimately include way more than 1.8 million.

“We’ve seen similar proposals in the past.  There have been amnesties floated, amnesties passed.  Inevitably, the number of people who end up being granted is higher than the number that was anticipated.

“Inevitably there is going to be a certain level of fraud in this process.  Logically, you’re going to have to identify that you’ve been in the United States since a [certain time] and the documents you can offer are generally fairly vague,” said Arthur.

And by including illegal immigrants who are not part of the DACA program, Arthur says Trump is inviting a bureaucratic nightmare for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.

“If it was simply the 690,000 DACA people, USCIS already knows who those people are and can do a one to one match.  When you’re talking about an additional 1.1 million individuals, that’s going to require brand new files being opened, documents being reviewed, and the fact is USCIS just doesn’t have the bandwidth to do that work right now,” said Arthur.

Arthur is generally pleased with the movement to limit chain migration, keeping it to spouses and minor children, as opposed to current law which allows adult children, siblings, and parents.  However, he says Trump is making a big mistake in how he wants to implement the plan.

“The problem is that the framework will also make these changes prospectively, not retroactively.  It’s going to process through the four million people who are currently in that backlog, people who have had petitions filed on their behalf and who are awaiting a number in order to apply and go through the process of being vetted,” said Arthur.

“That’s a pretty big concern of ours because of course you’re going to end up potentially giving an additional four million people status,” said Arthur.

But while some conservatives are wary of Trump’s plan, most Democrats are greeting Trump’s policy retreat with full condemnation.

“Dreamers should not be held hostage to President Trump’s crusade to tear families apart and waste billions of American tax dollars on an ineffective wall,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who says Trump is reaching for a hardline immigration agenda on the backs of young people.

Arthur is not surprised.

“That’s just plain sanctimony.  I could have anticipated what Dick Durbin was going to say and I could have written it myself,” he said.

Democrats and liberal immigration activists accuse Trump of clamping down on legal immigration because of his efforts to limit chain migration and kill the visa lottery.  But Arthur says there’s a very good reason for imposing limitations.

“The proposals set forth in the framework are necessary changes that we need in order to ameliorate the problems that got us here to begin with.  The fact is there are huge loopholes in the law that allow unaccompanied alien children to show up at a port of entry.  They don’t even have to enter illegally.

“Once in the United States, United States government officials complete the work of the smugglers that brought them to the border to begin with and reunite them with family members or friends or other individuals in the United States who will take care of them.  This is a huge problem and it’s a huge magnet that draws minors to the United States,” said Arthur.

Why is that a huge problem?  Arthur says that magnet leaves kids vulnerable to unspeakable horrors at the hands of their smugglers so long as the parents of those kids think their children are virtually guaranteed a chance to live in the U.S.

“The people who engage in these activities don’t simply smuggle people for money.  The fact is they rob, they rape, they hold people ransom for money.  They do that with children as well.  Turning off that magnet is an absolutely crucial element of any plan that’s going to grant any kind of amnesty to any population of DACA people,” said Arthur.

Arthur sees positives and negatives for the political path forward on immigration.  He’s deeply concerned that Trump’s willingness to compromise at the outset will ultimately lead to a far worse bill.

“Inevitably, bills like this are a race to the bottom.  If you say (you’re going to allow) 1.8 million people who got here on X date, why not people who got here on X date plus one year, or (if we accept) people who came here below the age of 16, why not people who got here below the age of 18,” said Arthur.

At the same time, he says some House conservatives are not happy with Trump’s plan and may be able to improve it.

“There are some individuals in the House who are vociferously opposed to any plan like this.  You can anticipate that those individuals will attempt to pare back the amazingly generous proposal that the president has made,” said Arthur.

While he has serious problems with Trump’s concessions, Arthur says Democrats are foolish to demonize a major outreach on Trump’s part.

“Quite frankly, if the Democrats don’t take this deal and end up scuttling it, this is going to be on their heads,” said Arthur.

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Trump Doesn’t Fire Mueller, Left Freaks Over DACA Concession, Left Coast Lunacy

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David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are amused by the media frothing over President Trump allegedly trying to have Special Counsel Robert Mueller fired seven months ago, while largely overlooking the fact that Mueller wasn’t fired.  They also discuss President Trump’s major concessions on amnesty in his his immigration legislation framework – concessions that haven’t stopped his critics from accusing the president of being a white supremacist who is tearing apart families.  And they throw up their hands as the majority leader in the California State Assembly proposes penalties of six months in jail or $1,000 fines for any waiter who gives a customer a plastic straw without being asked.

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Good Riddance to Gutierrez, Project Veritas Flop, Trump & ‘Pocahontas’

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are thrilled to see Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez planning to leave Congress and take his toxic, divisive immigration rhetoric with him.  They also slam Project Veritas for trying to plant a fake accusation against Roy Moore with the Washington Post in an attempt to discredit the Post’s earlier stories on Moore.  And they they sigh as President Trump takes a political shot at Elizabeth Warren by calling her ‘Pocahontas’ while honoring Navajo Code Talkers from World War II at the White House, not because Warren doesn’t deserve criticism for her suspect claims of Cherokee heritage but for injecting politics into a a ceremony that should have been free of it.

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‘I’m Afraid the President is Getting Rolled’

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President Trump and Democratic Party leaders in Congress say they are closing in on a deal that would have Congress enshrining the legal status of illegal immigrants who came here as children in exchange for what Trump calls “massive border security,” but a leading immigration activist thinks the president is getting snookered.

“I’m afraid the president is getting rolled,” said Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian.  “He simply let (Senate Minority Leader) Chuck Schumer set the terms of this debate.”

Trump met with Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Wednesday night at the White House to discuss the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.  Following the meeting, Schumer and Pelosi released a statement suggesting a deal was done to approve legislation to give young people here illegally and enrolled in the program permanent legal status.

Trump later tweeted that there was not a done deal and all later said the details still needed to be worked out on border security, although the Democrats reiterated that they would not approve funding to build a wall on the southern border.

Krikorian says Schumer has the upper hand in this debate, as he’s been immersed in it for decades.

“Chuck Schumer has been doing immigration for 30 years.  He was responsible for the 1986 amnesty, the last push to get it over.  He was in the House of Representatives then,” said Krikorian.  “He was the motivating force behind the Gang of Eight that passed the Senate.”

Krikorian says Trump is not well-versed at all in immigration policy and he can see Schumer winning Trump over in the language Trump is now using.

“President Trump doesn’t know anything about the immigration issue.  So Schumer tells him, ‘This wouldn’t be an amnesty, Mr. President, because they wouldn’t get citizenship.’  Trump just mouths those cliches that we have been hearing now for years that are straight out false,” said Krikorian.

“The president has no idea about any of this stuff.  I am happy to stipulate that he is good at real estate deals.  That may well be the case.  But dealing with mob and labor bosses and crooked building inspectors, those guys are much more reliable negotiating partners than Chuck Schumer.  The president is like a babe in the woods.  He’s getting taken for a ride,” said Krikorian.

Krikorian suspects the challenge for Trump is getting even steeper given the myriad of staff changes that leave very few immigration hawks in the White House.

“Everybody with a position of authority is either a liberal Democrat or is a non-political retired general who really don’t have strong political views.  They just want to see things fixed and work better.  And that’s a recipe for the president alienating himself from his base,” said Krikorian.

He says Trump and everyone else in the debate needs to see that granting permanent legal status to young illegal immigrants enrolled in DACA amounts to amnesty and they must proceed accordingly.

“Every amnesty – and that’s what this is is an amnesty, if you let illegals stay that’s an amnesty – every one always draws new illegal immigration into the country and then causes a surge of legal immigration down the stream as their relatives come in,” said Krikorian.

Krikorian believes Obama’s creation of DACA through the executive branch in 2012 was blatantly illegal, but he says that’s not the fault of the people who enrolled and the humanitarian thing to do is to make good on that promise.

However, he says only those actually enrolled in DACA, and not all illegal immigrants brought here as young children, should be considered for the legislation.  He also urges businesses to use the E-Verify system to check the immigration status of job applicants and for the government to crack down on employers who knowingly hire people in the U.S. illegally.

Krikorian urges Trump to use this moment to make tough demands of Democrats in exchange for relenting on DACA.

“What kind of provisions do you include in a bill like that to make sure that an amnesty that  may be 700,000 or 800,000 people doesn’t do more harm than good,” said Krikorian.

He strongly encourages Trump and congressional Republicans to insist that portions of the RAISE Act be included in any bill.  In addition to favoring prospective immigrants with college educations and the ability to provide for themselves, the legislation would also tighten which family members could later be brought in by immigrants.

Krikorian says giving DACA enrollees the ability to confer legal status on their parents must be prevented.

“Their parents knew what they were doing when they came here.  They weren’t children.  They don’t deserve the benefit from this amnesty, so what we need is to change the family immigration system so that it only focuses on husbands, wives, and little kids and not all these other adult relative categories we have now,” said Krikorian.

And he says all of this must be included in the same legislation as the enactment of DACA or the Democrats will win everything they want in exchange for nothing.

“It absolutely has to be in one piece.  If they get everything they want then it’ll be just like 1986, where they got their amnesty first and the enforcement never happened,” said Krikorian.

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