Migrant Policy Absent From Senate Foreign Aid Bill
NEWS. Final passage of a $95 billion foreign aid bill for military allies in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan was accelerated overnight to pass 70 to 29 early this morning.
MIGRANTS. Popular bipartisan migrant relief proposal for Afghan Adjustment and Documented Dreamers are back on the shelf after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer allowed no amendments to the bill before final passage.
BORDER. Overnight eight GOP Senators gave speeches focusing almost entirely on "border" — a nebulous cloud of invasion narratives and enforcement talking points that have become the Republican answer to just about any question on any topic from reporters at the Capitol.
TWO. The only immigration reporters left on the Capitol beat during this "Immigration Election" year are us and Bloomberg's Ellen Gilmer.
TODAY. Another House Vote to Impeach Mayorkas
FACEPALM. Speaker Mike Johnson will try again this week to pass a resolution to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
FACEPLANT. After weeks of public overtures from GOP leaders on their ginned-up merits of impeaching Mayorkas, the resolution introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) failed on the floor last Wednesday, losing by a single vote. Three Republicans defied Johnson by voting against the resolution with every Democrat.
MATHS. Johnson's odd at passing the resolution this week improved with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise back on Capitol Hill after undergoing cancer treatment.
DOUBT. At least four House Republicans are on the record expressing their doubts over impeaching Mayorkas. They are —
Rep. John Duarte (R-CA) on Jan. 8 — “There is no valid basis to impeach Secretary Mayorkas, as senior members of the House majority have attested, and this extreme impeachment push is a harmful distraction from our critical national security priorities."
Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) on Feb. 1 — “This is not a high crime or misdemeanor. It’s not an impeachable offense. This is a policy difference.”
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) on Feb. 6 — “They fail to identify an impeachable crime that Mayorkas has committed. In effect, they stretch and distort the Constitution in order to hold the administration accountable for stretching and distorting the law.”
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) on Feb. 6 — “Creating a new, lower standard for impeachment, one without any clear limiting principle, wouldn’t secure the border or hold Mr. Biden accountable. It would only pry open the Pandora’s box of perpetual impeachment.”
DUECES. Gallagher, chair of the special House committee on China who voted down last week's resolution on Mayorkas, has since announced that he won't run for reelection. Buck announced the same on November 1.
PABLO'S VIEW
The Senate foreign aid bill could have gone very, very badly for migrants who can be thankful that none of the anti-immigrant suite of permanent, sweeping policy changes written behind closed doors by an all-white senate working group, made it to final passage.
Now that the narrowed foreign aid package has passed, but what remain are the farcical "invasion" talking points about "border security" that pushed Senate leadership in both parties to the brink of passing the most xenophobic overhaul of immigration law in the living memory of Congress.
Importantly, the bipartisan deal was struck with no lawmakers of color at the negotiating table, a slight not lost on the 42-member Hispanic Caucus.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, told us last week that he didn't see the final deal until Feb. 4 when the Senate Committee on Appropriations finally posted it to their website.
Even Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the only appropriator of color on the 29 member committee, told us that he was not shown the migrant policy deal until it went live on the open Internet.
A deeper dive into Senate's immigration effort is sorely needed. So is a broad analysis of the many things political reporters get totally wrong in the immigration cover.
Regrettably, these important analyses will have to wait. After an all-nighter in the Senate press gallery listening to Republican anti-immigrant floor speeches, it's at 7:40AM — finally time for bed.