After outcry from conservatives and Republican lawmakers who weren't willing to betray the GOP's commitment to the rule of law, legal immigration, and border security, an attempt to grant mass amnesty to DACA beneficiaries is, according to reporting on Wednesday night, dead.
The long shot bipartisan immigration deal led by Sens. Thom Tillis and Kyrsten Sinema is dead this Congress, sources say.
— Priscilla Alvarez (@priscialva) December 15, 2022
Sen. John Cornyn and other members of GOP leadership said there was scant Republican support for the plan, which had yet to be released as legislative text.
Unsurprisingly, the fatally flawed legislative framework that was supposed to gin up support on both sides of the political aisle in the U.S. Senate did exactly the opposite as Republicans who limped across the midterm election finish line with barely a majority in the House and a loss in the Senate were not ready to hitch their names to a bill that was toxic among Republican voters.
As Vespa reported, the whole plan was a disaster from the start:
Senate Republicans and now-ex-Democrats are trying to push through a bill granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), who just left the Democratic Party, are the brain trust of this legislation that is sure to infuriate the rest of the conservative base when they read the fine print. On the other side, keep looking for how major labor unions, who are no fans of rampant illegal immigration, react to this bill. There will be no hearings—that would expose the grand amnesty plan.
Two million recipients of Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals will get put on the pathway to citizenship. Still, they can sponsor extended family members once they’re through the process. It doesn’t resolve the immigration issue, secure the border, or take it off the table for either party. All it does is reset the clock for another mass amnesty action for the next generation because these bills will undoubtedly incentivize more people to come here illegally if they know Washington will citizenship-track them eventually.
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The framework for the bill — no text had even been released — was so bad that even President Joe Biden said he was "encouraged" by the proposal, which told conservatives everything they needed to know.
If Biden thought the framework was a hopeful sign of progress, it's definitely a deeply flawed idea. Biden still won't admit there's a crisis at the border and has spent more time falsely smearing brave border agents than he has trying to stop the unmitigated flow of illegal immigrants — including a frightening number of individuals on terror watch lists — into the country. If someone that deluded about reality thinks your legislative proposal to grant citizenship to DACA kids adults is a step in the right direction, any sane Republicans would have immediately turn around and run.
Thankfully, for now, it seems enough solidly conservative lawmakers did exactly that, hence the amnesty deal's demise. Now the question remains whether a similar deal will be attempted again in the new Congress that kicks off in January, and whether senators such as Thom Tillis of North Carolina will be able to memory hole this latest attempt to abandon conservatives and border security for some inexplicable desire to look like a team player for the other side.
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