Despite pledging on the campaign trail along with Donald Trump that securing the border is a top priority under a Republican government, GOP Senators are working quietly behind closed doors to craft a grand amnesty deal with Democrats.
It’s a classic bait-and-switch operation wherein all the right things were said to get folks to pull the lever, only to find elected officials playing hocus-pocus with our immigration system afterward.
But it should come as no surprise. It’s the same game played by the Bush administration that left gaping holes along the border despite promises for upgraded security.
Expect 2018 to be a bloodbath of incumbents getting knocked off by primary challengers willing do what they say they will at the capitol.
Here’s more from Politico…
Key Senate Republicans have begun privately discussing the contours of an immigration plan to shield the hundreds of thousands of Dreamers who will lose work permits and deportation protections starting early next year.
Preliminary talks show that influential GOP senators are eager to devise a legislative fix for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that could pass muster with both Democrats and President Donald Trump, who said he will start winding down the Obama-era program in March to force lawmakers to come up with a permanent DACA measure with significant border security and enforcement provisions attached.
In an interview, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, has convened a working group on immigration that includes himself and GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma, as well as other lawmakers. Sens. David Perdue of Georgia and Jeff Flake of Arizona also are among the Republicans who have been engaged in the talks, according to sources.
“There’s a solution to be had there,” Cornyn said. “But we just need to get on with it.”
A bipartisan DACA deal is in no way imminent. Democrats are waiting for Republicans to offer their list of demands in exchange for legalizing Dreamers. And an immigration package that gets through the Senate, even with GOP sweeteners, may have trouble in the more conservative House.
