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  1. #1
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    The Cruz-Feinstein Immigration Bill

    Are You Ready For … The Cruz-Feinstein Immigration Bill?

    ED MORRISSEY
    Posted at 10:41 am on June 22, 2018




    No? Neither are Ted Cruz and Dianne Feinstein, according to Politico’s Burgess Everett, but they’re at least talking about a fix to end family separations at the border. The discussion might signal that Democrats could back some form of legislative fix to enable border enforcement, but on what terms?

    The two senators both represent border states but couldn’t be further apart on immigration. Feinstein wants to pass a “clean” bill to enshrine protections for young immigrants threatened by deportation; Cruz warned that Republicans would lose Congress if they provided “amnesty” to those same people.


    But that might be the point: Cruz and Feinstein are trying to hash out a compromise that shields families from being separated and can win a strong majority in the Senate. If these two, of all people, can come to terms on a deal, there’s no reason for anyone in the chamber to vote against it, their colleagues reason.

    Well, that depends on what the compromise contains, but the two figures involved are almost designed to make a case for an eventual bill. Cruz is a hardliner on immigration issues, and Feinstein is getting pushed further to the Left by fellow Democrats in California. About the only overlap between them will be family separations, an outcome that is so bad that it’s a rare point of bipartisan agreement, and possibly an extension of circumstances for asylum, depending on just how broad that gets.


    Everett likens this issue to DACA and the “dreamers,” pessimistically comparing the outcome on DACA negotiations to this situation. That’s a different kettle of fish, however; while sympathy for the students in question extends across the aisle, there is far less consensus about the nature of DACA than there is on the nature of family separations.

    Besides, DACA is a significant part of larger immigration policy, while family separations are basically an operational issue that got complicated by earlier efforts to end human trafficking. Family separations
    can get addressed in isolation;

    DACA will require a broader fix to end the incentive structures that it puts in place for further illegal immigration.


    That may be why Chuck Schumer feels comfortable enough to encourage Feinstein to keep working with Cruz, who is highly unlikely to come off his hardline positions on other points of immigration policy. This is an easily fixed situation, so obstruction on this point carries its own political risks. A compromise between these two positions will necessarily require the narrowest of approaches, assuming they can come to a compromise at all.


    So far, though, the two principals seem hopeful:

    “There will always be issues on which the two parties have real and significant differences,” Cruz said. But “everyone agrees the best place for children is with their parents. So there should be a bipartisan solution.”


    “Our job is to try to be constructive and solve problems.

    And … you generally work with people … who show interest,” Feinstein said. “He may have some different views than I have. That works two ways. The key is to sit down and work it out, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

    It might take a little horse trading on asylum, but if that gets Trump a green light for his zero-tolerance enforcement at the border, it’s likely to be worth it. The only way out of the dead-end EO signed earlier this week is to get past a cloture vote in the Senate, and there aren’t enough red-state Democrats running for re-election to get there. That means giving something to get something, and at least it’s Cruz rather than Susan Collins heading up those negotiations.

    https://hotair.com/archives/2018/06/...igration-bill/

    Last edited by JohnDoe2; 06-22-2018 at 01:55 PM.
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  2. #2
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


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  3. #3
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    A little ditty about Ted and Dianne

    Ted Cruz and Dianne Feinstein team up to tackle the migrant family crisis.

    By BURGESS EVERETT
    06/22/2018 05:07 AM EDT



    Sens. Ted Cruz and Dianne Feinstein are ideological and stylistic opposites. The 47-year-old Texas Republican (left) spent years enraging colleagues from both parties with antagonistic tactics, while the 84-year-old California Democrat has developed a reputation as a dealmaker in the chamber. | Alex Wong/Getty Images and Susan Walsh/AP Photo



    Two months after Ted Cruz arrived in the Senate in 2013, he tried to quiz veteran Dianne Feinstein about her understanding of constitutional law during a tense Judiciary Committee hearing on an assault weapons ban she had authored.

    Pressed by the freshman whippersnapper about whether Congress could regulate books in the same way Feinstein wanted to regulate guns, the Stanford-educated California Democrat delivered a memorable zinger in response: “I am not a sixth-grader.”


    Five years later, the once-antagonistic Texan and his California colleague are talking daily. The topic now isn’t guns but how to solve the crisis of migrant families separated on the border. And according to people who’ve witnessed their interactions, the two are getting along quite well.

    “I think he’s very constructive,” Feinstein beamed in an interview. “And I’m delighted.”


    “She certainly has expressed a strong and, I hope, sincere interest,” Cruz replied. “So we’re working together on legislation that both conferences can support.”


    The two senators both represent border states but couldn’t be further apart on immigration. Feinstein wants to pass a “clean” bill to enshrine protections for young immigrants threatened by deportation; Cruz warned that Republicans would lose Congress if they provided “amnesty” to those same people.

    But that might be the point: Cruz and Feinstein are trying to hash out a compromise that shields families from being separated and can win a strong majority in the Senate. If these two, of all people, can come to terms on a deal, there’s no reason for anyone in the chamber to vote against it, their colleagues reason.


    “This is a problem that everyone, no matter what end of the political spectrum you are on, believes needs to be fixed. Ultimately, it makes strange bedfellows,” said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), who attended a bipartisan meeting on Wednesday that included Cruz and Feinstein. “Dianne’s a longtime legislator. I think that Sen. Cruz is interested in getting this issue solved.”


    Feinstein and Cruz are ideological and stylistic opposites. The 47-year-old Cruz speaks in a lawyerly but mischievous manner and spent years enraging colleagues from both parties with antagonistic tactics.

    Since losing to Donald Trump in 2016, however, Cruz, has morphed into a more collaborative and agreeable figure.


    The 84-year-old Feinstein speaks formally though sometimes off the cuff. First elected to the Senate in 1992, the onetime San Francisco mayor has developed a reputation as a dealmaker in the chamber, despite her liberal leanings on gun control and immigration.


    Both senators are up for reelection this year. And though they’re heavily favored to win, they've each seized a chance to work with the other on an important issue and burnish their bipartisan cred at the same time. Feinstein is being challenged from the left by state Senate President Kevin de Leon, and Cruz will face liberal Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke.


    “Ted Cruz running for reelection is a different person than Ted Cruz running for president. So far, I think it’s a welcome change,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).


    Whether they can strike a deal and avoid getting bogged down by the broader immigration debate that has bedeviled Congress for more than a decade is another matter. President Trump took some pressure off of Capitol Hill this week with his decision to stop the practice of separating families. But his executive order is expected to be challenged in court and potentially be thrown back to Congress to write a new law preventing the practice.

    Cruz and Feinstein each have introduced their own bill to address the family separation issue, and they take divergent approaches. Cruz’s plan would allow asylum-seeking families to be detained together while expediting court hearings, a problem for Democrats; Feinstein’s legislation would be a return to what the GOP calls a “catch-and-release” policy that conservatives loathe. A third bill, written by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), is similar to Cruz's bill but codifies exceptions to a 1997 settlement that Democrats argue would lead to indefinite detention.


    During a meeting in Sen. Susan Collins' (R-Maine) office on Wednesday, senators in both parties discussed requiring the use of ankle bracelets to track families that have been caught crossing the border illegally. So far, Cruz and Feinstein don't seem to have agreed to much other than to keep meeting as the issue wends its way through the courts. Producing a bill remains a long shot.


    Still, Cruz says there is “considerable common” ground with Feinstein about limiting the scope of the immigration debate. And Feinstein says the two have “come a long ways” from their viral tit-for-tat five years ago.


    “There will always be issues on which the two parties have real and significant differences," Cruz said. But "everyone agrees the best place for children is with their parents. So there should be a bipartisan solution."


    “Our job is to try to be constructive and solve problems.

    And ... you generally work with people ... who show interest,” Feinstein said. “He may have some different views than I have. That works two ways. The key is to sit down and work it out, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”


    Still, there‘s a big trust gap between the two parties. Democrats worry that the GOP will put a Republican-only bill ending separations up for a vote and then blame Democrats for voting against it.


    And Republicans suspect Democrats are trying to use the family separation issue to galvanize their voters in the midterms, and that they want the policy to sink the president and the GOP.

    “Sen. Feinstein seems sincere. And I know Sen. Tillis and Sen. Cruz are sincere. And I think there is a deal to be made. Sen. Schumer doesn’t seem to be encouraging them, he seems to be discouraging them,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas).


    A source familiar with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s thinking said he is encouraging Feinstein and other Democrats to work with Republicans on legislation.


    But success is still a ways off. Most Democrats hope to force Trump to back away even more from his “zero tolerance” border policies. And Republicans aren’t all united behind Cruz’s plan, with some preferring Tillis’ approach because it makes fewer sweeping changes to asylum laws.


    Moreover, Trump’s moves are already reminiscent of the Senate’s last immigration debacle. The president ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and punted it to Congress, which failed in February to approve protections for those young immigrants.


    If recent history is a guide, the same could happen on family separation, an issue that elicits similar public sympathy but could prove just as intractable. The collaboration of two lawmakers who are diametrically opposed on almost everything else, however, has provided some senators with a glimmer of hope.


    “Let’s see what they can do,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine.). “Think of voting for a Feinstein-Cruz bill!”

    https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...gration-663319
    Last edited by JohnDoe2; 06-22-2018 at 04:37 PM.
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


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