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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
The G.O.P. abandoned a bipartisan border security bill that also aided Ukraine after Democrats called their bluff on immigration, agreeing to tough measures Republicans demanded.
Congressional Republicans thought they had set a clever trap for Democrats that would accomplish complementary political and policy goals.
Their idea was to tie approval of military assistance to Ukraine to tough border security demands that Democrats would never accept, allowing Republicans to block the money for Kyiv that many of them oppose while simultaneously enabling them to pound Democrats for refusing to halt a surge of migrants at the border. It was to be a win-win headed into November’s elections.
But Democrats tripped them up by offering substantial — almost unheard-of — concessions on immigration policy without insisting on much in return. Now it is Republicans who are rapidly abandoning a compromise that gave them much of what they wanted, leaving aid to Ukraine in deep jeopardy, border policy in turmoil and Congress again flailing as multiple crises at home and abroad go without attention because of a legislative stalemate.
The turn of events led to a remarkable Capitol Hill spectacle this week as a parade of Senate Republicans almost instantly repudiated a major piece of legislation they had spent months demanding as part of any agreement to provide more help to a beleaguered Ukraine. Even Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader and foremost Republican advocate of helping Ukraine, and Senator James Lankford, the Oklahoma Republican who invested months in cutting the border deal, suggested they would vote to block it on the floor in a test vote set for Wednesday.
It’s hard to find good data on this, partially because illegal migrant crossings are, well, illegal, and so those migrants intend to cross without being found, and won’t appear in any statistics. But in the cases where migrants are caught in process and are able to be sent back over the border, well, they are going to pick another place to try again. So those numbers are likely to be inflated a bit, as the same people may be caught multiple times.
But what’s not in dispute is that the number has been rising every year, and the current structure we have to process them can’t catch up. Republicans are aghast that sometimes, when we catch an illegal on our side of the border, all we can do is give them a court date and release them. But if our system is overloaded, there’s not much else they can do.
And the bussing of migrants from Texas to Chicago and New York might be a political stunt (and possibly illegal itself), but it’s an effective one. It’s hard to deny the numbers when they show up at the bus station. But it further emphasizes that the people running Texas think of these migrants as little more than cattle.
I think it’s important to add that this “surge” is a statistical surge, not a literal one. “God’s Army” is not going to come to the border and find a big hole in the wall, and migrants pouring in. Yes, there are a lot of migrants currently on the other side of that park, but thats because it’s easy to get to. they can always just find a different place to cross. The border is so massive that people can leak through, a few at a time, and still amount to a statistically significant increase.
This is especially true since 80-90% of the time, they do show up for court.
Republican propaganda notwithstanding, a lot of people are generally honest people who do understand the consequences of further pissing off the most powerful government in the world. A little surprisingly, that includes people who are in such a desperate situation that literally taking what objects or family members they can carry and swimming across the Rio Grande into a country they know will be hostile to them is the best option available.