Schumer Anti-Migrant Effort "Dead" in Senate

Majority Leader signals possible action for dead messaging bill.

Senator James Lankford said Wednesday that the bipartisan immigration effort Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer seeks to resurrect ain’t happening. "It's dead," the Oklahoma Republican told Eric Garcia, Independent’s Washington bureau chief (and author of a ground-breaking book about autism you should all listen to on Audible).

"They're trying to say it's a bipartisan bill when I haven't been a part of this at all," Lankford continued, bitterly.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tapped Lankford last October to lead policy negotiations on a secretive, months-long legislative effort that was killed on arrival when Donald Trump famously opposed it (House Speaker Mike Johnson quickly followed suit).

Congressional progressives and a handful of moderates offered more low-key opposition to the bill’s horrific grab bag of anti-immigrant policies included by Lankford, Kyrsten Sinema, Chris Murphy, the all-white Senate negotiating team tasked with forging a bipartisan work product.

Murphy now wants Schumer to bring his dead immigration bill to the floor for a standalone vote that’s unlikely to pass, but could finally put to bed what has become a painful messaging bill that damaged everyone who touched it in the Senate while doing little to bolster Biden’s reelection chances.