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  1. #1
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    Trump, Republicans face immigration reckoning

    Trump, Republicans face immigration reckoning

    By Stephen Collinson and Lauren Fox, CNN
    Updated 1:56 AM ET, Thu January 11, 2018

    Story highlights

    "I don't see any other game in town," Sen. Jeff Flake said
    The debate is matching various party factions against one other

    Washington (CNN)The Republican Party's moment of truth on immigration is inescapable.

    Debate over the fate of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children has turned into a pivotal moment for the GOP on an issue that has been heading to a boiling point for more than a decade.

    Now, with Republicans in control of the House, the Senate and the White House, the party is being forced to confront its deep divisions over immigration, which threaten to compromise its capacity to provide coherent governance.

    The debate is matching various party factions against one other and testing the willingness of the Republican base to accept a necessary compromise with Democrats that is certain to be portrayed by some as a moment of political betrayal.
    It's no wonder the closed doors talks on Capitol Hill are so tense and contentious and President Donald Trump's every comment is so closely scrutinized.

    "Everybody has their own franchise ... but somebody has to put forward a document, somebody has to put forward a bill," Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake said Wednesday. "I don't see any other game in town."

    For Trump, the immigration policy debate marks a watershed moment. It is one of the first times that he has been required to show genuine political courage, to take steps likely to alienate his loyal voters, who have stuck with him through everything.

    All presidents reach such a moment sooner or later, when the national interest, the requirements of governance and even their own legacies require them to expunge political capital they have spent years building.

    Trump's improvised and shifting positions over the past few days on what he wants to see in the bill suggest that he has not yet reached the moment when hesitation solidifies into resolution and trust in political fate.

    Yet Republicans on Capitol Hill say that only an unequivocal statement by Trump about the bill he wants to see, and a sincere effort to offer cover to conservative lawmakers, will allow a compromise to get to his desk.

    Closing the deal

    Given the central role played by immigration in his presidential campaign, Trump may be the only personality in Washington who can close the deal.

    But the President's comment Tuesday at a bipartisan meeting at the White House that his position would be "what the people in this room come up with" struck many of his allies in Congress as an abdication of leadership, and well short of the level of commitment needed to bring the party together.

    That has left the fate of the immigration bill, despite multiple efforts by different groups in Congress to find a solution, in limbo.

    "In terms of how we get to the finish line, I'm not sure I see that yet," one Republican senator told CNN on Wednesday on condition of anonymity. "Everyone seems to think there's the outlines of a deal, but like I said, I'll believe it when I see it."

    For Republican lawmakers, the showdown marks a moment when the responsibilities of power clash with their pursuit of ideological purity.

    The party is split between comparative moderates who want to solve the issue, understand the political and humanitarian weight posed by the plight of those affected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and believe that the GOP must ease its position on immigration to ensure future viability. They include South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Flake, who have fought for years to enact immigration reform and are part of the 'Gang of Six' GOP and Democratic senators seeking a deal.

    Then there are Republicans who are more hard-line on immigration, many of whom see the prospect that those covered by DACA could be granted a path to citizenship as tantamount to amnesty, one of the most potent words in the conservative lexicon. Hard-liners on immigration include Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and Iowa Sen Chuck Grassley, who are concerned about questions like E-Verify, family-based migration and border enforcement.

    The chasm that the party must traverse is huge. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Wednesday he could not countenance voting for the kind of bill he understands would be put forward by the gang of six.

    "It would be inconsistent with the promises made to the working men and women of this country that we would put them first, so I very much hope Congress doesn't do so," he said.

    Potent Issue

    No one in the Republican Party doubts the potency of immigration. Key figures in the conservative media have warned it is the one issue that could tear the party apart and even threaten Trump's hold on his dedicated base voters.
    In fact, immigration is an issue that changed the face of American politics, since it was used deliberately by Trump to build an insurgent power base that eviscerated the Republican primary field in the 2016 campaign.

    The current debate is also forcing Democrats into a searing process of political self-examination -- since the fate of DACA recipients is as important to their grass roots as the wall is to Trump's. Failing to fight their corner could have consequences for the party's support among Hispanic voters, who are vital to the party's hopes of winning back power on Capitol Hill this year and the White House in 2020.

    But since it is in power, the price for the Republican Party has never been so acute if it fails to find a resolution for DACA recipients. Overwhelming majorities of Americans support shielding people who were brought to the US illegally as children through no fault of their own, and the specter of mass deportations could be hugely damaging to the GOP in already tough midterm elections.

    Even lawmakers who oppose granting a path to citizenship for DACA recipients understand the need to avert that nightmare scenario.

    "Right now, I think the best way to do this is not to offer any kind of long-term citizenship, but legalization instead," said Rep. Mark Walker, the leader of the conservative Republican Study Committee.

    As well as the national political consequences of acting, or not acting, the DACA imbroglio is forcing the GOP to question longtime and fundamental positions on the details of immigration as never before.

    That journey into the party's soul includes finally coming up with a definition of what exactly Trump means -- and will accept -- when it comes to funding the border wall that he placed at the center of this campaign.

    Will the President -- and his voters -- settle for an amalgam of walls, fences and electronically monitored border areas broken by areas of impassable topographical features like rivers and mountains, for instance?

    Then the GOP must shape its own position on questions that include whether DACA recipients should be allowed to bring their parents or grandparents into the country once they are legalized. The party must arrive at a definition of exactly what it means by border security and balance the demands of its rambunctious base with other Republican constituencies like business and agricultural groups that are alienated by hard-line GOP positions on workplace verification systems like E-Verify.

    The politics of the debate are so treacherous that there is no guarantee that any compromise forged by the various interest groups in the GOP caucus will win majority support in the party or in Congress, a dynamic that often played out in the health care and tax reform debates and can make assessing the progress of any reform effort highly uncertain."Just because we have two groups negotiating their position, they don't speak for everybody," said Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy."I mean they don't speak for me. I'm gonna see what this final product looks like."

    http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/11/politi...gop/index.html
    A Nation Without Borders Is Not A Nation - Ronald Reagan
    Save America, Deport Congress! - Judy

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  2. #2
    Moderator Beezer's Avatar
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    NO CITIZENSHIP
    NO VOTING
    NO HEALTHCARE
    NO WELFARE
    NO FOOD STAMPS
    NO MORE ANCHOR BABIES!
    ILLEGAL ALIENS HAVE "BROKEN" OUR IMMIGRATION SYSTEM

    DO NOT REWARD THEM - DEPORT THEM ALL

  3. #3
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    Wow. An actually thoughtful article on the subject.

    Let me try and break down the reality of where I think we are.

    I've read the news reports on the proposed Goodlatte bill, just the highlights, the articles don't print a text or even a full list of the 35 of the President's 72 demand items.

    It does a good job of fixing chain migration and eliminates the visa lottery. But why would this need to be negotiated? These are creations of ignorant legislators to begin with. When immigration volumes were 70,000 a year 40 years ago, bringing family members in once you were a citizen made sense. But when Congress increases legal immigration levels to over 1 million a year, that chain immigration makes no sense at all. Why would Americans need to forfeit jobs and educations to illegals aliens in exchange for fixing stupid, dangerous and costly legislation passed by idiot members of Congress that overpopulate and bankrupt our nation? We shouldn't. There's nothing in this for us except what we should have had to begin with. So our new demand is you fix the chain migration disaster or we'll vote you out and elect some smart patriotic people to the Congress who will.

    Furthermore, the stupidity of a "visa lottery" is just too dumb to discuss and has to go without any trade off as well. Fixing these two huge problems has nothing to do with replacing them with expanded foreign worker programs for agriculture or any other industry. We already have too many people in our country. Until you get all the people who aren't supposed to be in our country out of our country and all able-bodied Americans back to work and off welfare, no American wants any increase in foreign worker visas of any kind, we want them all reduced or dispensed with entirely.

    Furthermore, Americans do not want amnesty of any kind by any name for any reason for any illegal aliens. What we what is the mess you all created fixed, illegal aliens deported and legal immigration levels reduced.

    This is not complicated for the American Voter, it's actually very very simple. You fix it all, chain migration, visa lottery, border wall, interior enforcement, deportation backlogs, reduced foreign worker visas and green cards, TPS, refugee and asylum programs, sanctuary cities, catch and release, all of it, without any amnesty for any illegal alien, or you'll be deported out of DC back to your home states permanently.
    Last edited by Judy; 01-11-2018 at 08:54 AM.
    A Nation Without Borders Is Not A Nation - Ronald Reagan
    Save America, Deport Congress! - Judy

    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  4. #4
    Senior Member southBronx's Avatar
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    back in the 40- &50 we did not get anything NO TV- no telephone - do your wash by hand -no car - they tell you what you can feed your family -no cell phone- no healthcare at all -& now they get every thing that BS Trump stop the welfare & fast & see they will all go back

  5. #5
    Moderator Beezer's Avatar
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    Stop the taxpayer funded schools too.

    Illegal aliens should not be AWARDED the benefit of a citizen by attending OUR schools.

    Let them finish in June 2018...the E-verify EVERY student to ensure they are a LEGAL U.S. CITIZEN!

    OUR TAXPAYER DOLLARS SHOULD NOT BE PAYING FOR ILLEGAL ALIEN FOREIGNERS TO ATTEND OUR SCHOOL

    AND TERMINIATE ESL! IF YOU CANNOT PASS A TEST TO BE PLACED IN SCHOOL...GO LEARN ENGLISH ON YOUR DIME...ON YOUR TIME! NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF DUMBING DOWN OUR STUDENTS...WE ARE IN THE TOILET AS FAR AS EDUCATION AND TEST SCORES GOES IN THIS COUNTRY!
    ILLEGAL ALIENS HAVE "BROKEN" OUR IMMIGRATION SYSTEM

    DO NOT REWARD THEM - DEPORT THEM ALL

  6. #6
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    McConnell could change the 60 vote rule but he says he won't change it until after the 2018 elections. IMO, he is providing cover for the pro amnesty, anti Trump agenda Republicans... Just sayin
    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at https://eepurl.com/cktGTn

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