Trump’s border wall is a nonstarter for Democrats. He knows that.

Trump’s border wall is a nonstarter for Democrats. He knows that.

By Amber Phillips
October 9 at 9:10 AM

When Democrats struck a tentative deal last month with the president to protect "dreamers" from deportations, they were skeptical that it would turn into anything real.

That skepticism was well founded. Either President Trump has changed his mind about shielding from deportation thousands of young undocumented immigrants in the country, or he never really wanted to do so in the first place. We know this because late Sunday, the administration released a wish list of immigration principles it wants in any deal. No. 1 is funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Except, the wall is a manifestation of everything Democrats despise about Trump and his hard-line immigration stances, simplistic policy ideas and identity-focused politics. Basically, it's a total nonstarter for Democrats and their base. Trump knows this well.

He has spent the better part of this year pushing his wall right up to the edge of negotiations with Congress, only to back off at the last minute because Democrats refused to budge. In April, Congress was up against a deadline to keep the government open. Trump wanted Congress to make a down payment to build his border wall. Senate Democrats threatened to filibuster any spending bill that funded it, which would effectively force the government to shut down on Republicans' watch. Trump backed off.

The exact same scene played out in September's budget negotiations: Trump demanded funding for a wall. Democrats threatened to walk away. Trump backed off.

Congressional leaders haven't ruled out that Trump will ask for wall funding in December, when it's time to pass yet another spending bill. They have no idea how serious he'll be about fighting for it, but it's a threat they have to take seriously because it's one of the policy issues that could cause a government shutdown. And now, Trump is pulling out his wall card for this deal to give dreamers deportation protections that he, himself, is removing.

“The administration can't be serious about compromise or helping the Dreamers if they begin with a list that is anathema to the Dreamers, to the immigrant community and to the vast majority of Americans,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a joint statement Sunday evening, referring to the wish list.

Trump could be derailing a deal to protect dreamers for a wall that he hasn't been serious about getting built. He's not even pretending anymore that Mexico will pay for it. He has backed off every opportunity he has had to force Congress to include money for it. And he waffled on whether the wall was even seriously discussed when he and top Democrats announced their late-night September deal to protect dreamers.

Democratic leaders left the White House that Sunday night sure that a wall wasn't part of any deal. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders then said it was. Trump said the wall would come later. Then he said, "If there’s not a wall, we’re doing nothing."

The whole deal devolved into murkiness that raised Democrats' suspicions that they weren't going to have a trustworthy negotiator on the other end of the table. Sure enough, there haven't been any significant developments on a dreamer deal since then — until Sunday, a development that could very well end the deal.

The thing is, Trump has very few friends in Washington who want to help him build this wall. Mainstream Republicans don't like the wall, either. Some of the more hard-line members of the party like the idea, but nearly every border Republican is opposed. They argue that money could be better spent on more technologically advanced border security tools.

Plus, using untold billions of dollars for building a wall along 1,900 miles of mostly desert — without a check from Mexico — would be a fiscally irresponsible thing to do for the party that thinks it's the fiscally responsible one.

House Republicans voted through a $1.6 billion down payment this summer, and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) put out a flashy video championing it. But they did all of this knowing the wall was dead on arrival in the Senate and that they wouldn't be forced to actually write that check.

It's hard to overstate what a barrier Trump's border wall has been for getting things done in Washington. It's just as difficult to discern whether he's serious about getting Congress to approve the wall. But by even bringing up the wall as part of a deal with Democrats, it's pretty clear he doesn't want to make one.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.8a8f2e17dce4

LOL!! Clear as spring water to me. I don't think Donald Trump wants an amnesty deal for anyone for any reason. Why would he? He wants 10,000 ICE Agents, 1,000 immigration attorneys for ICE, 300 more federal immigration prosecutors and 370 more immigration judges. He wants the Davis-Oliver Act which authorizes state and local law enforcement to engage and enforce US immigration law without fear of prosecution for arresting and detaining illegal aliens.

What we know or should know and what Trump believes is that while we have a 60 vote cloture rule, we're not going to pass any immigration legislation that we want, they may pass the House, but not the Senate, so what's a President to do to keep the issue on the front-burner and alive and kicking through the 2018 Mid-Terms and hopefully pick up 8 Republican seats in the US Senate so we can actually pass our legislation? Well, what better than a bogus deal with the Democrats on "responsible immigration reform".

Now he has all eyes on his 70-point immigration plan with "no amnesty and no citizenship" to end illegal immigration into the US, once and for all.

Brilliant. It's like a surprise fast pitch to first base for the 3rd out. All Trump wanted in his little dinner meeting with Nancy and Chuck was an increase in the debt ceiling and funding for Hurricane Relief, all they wanted was a DACA deal, so they eat and yada, yada, and Trump schmoozes and patronizes, knowing full well they would take everything he said out of context and detail and issue a public statement that night, which he would then promptly deny many aspects of the next day. Pelosi being a little nervous calls first thing and demands Trump tweet out that if they don't have a deal by March that he won't start deporting all the DACAs, (he says to himself, I can do that, I wasn't planning on deporting them in March anyway, because I don't have the staff or resources to do it with), so he tweets it out. "DACAs have no worries, if Congress doesn't act by March, then I will revisit."

And that my friends is the only thing that Trump is going to do, is revisit the deportation schedule in March if there is no deal on DACA, which there won't be in my opinion, and the letters will go out on schedule, because that is the rule of law. When ICE might ever show up to haul their asses out of here, well, ICE will get to them, when they get to them. Trump certainly isn't going to broadcast when ICE is coming to haul you out of here.

This will be at the height of primary mid-term season, with a pitch for "Who you for, American Workers or illegal aliens? See the line? Pick a side. We're draining the Swamp."

Then it's the general mid-terms with a pitch for "Who you for, American Workers or illegal aliens? See the line? Pick a side. We're draining the swamp and fixing our country to Make America Great Again. Vote Republican for US Senate and break the gridlock."

That's my take on it, anyway. Hope it all works out the way we want it to, and I think it will.