Senators Support Clean Bill For Afghan War Allies
Good afternoon!
Today we're covering Senate support for a clean bill that provides amnesty for Afghan war allies and an update for documented dreamers. Let's get into it!
NEWS. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said on Super Bowl Sunday afternoon that her Afghan Adjustment Act amendment had the votes to pass if Majority Leader Chuck Schumer puts it on the floor for a vote.
CLEAR. “We now have enough Republicans, so it’s very clear that we would win a vote,” she told reporter Eric Garcia of her amendment to the $95 billion foreign aid bill for military allies in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
CAVEAT. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) also said Afghan Adjustment would pass as an amendment "standing on its own, without the other issues that are clouding today."
CLEAN. Reed is saying that attaching other proposals to Afghan Adjustment could hurt its chances on the Senate floor.
DOCUMENTED DREAMERS
PADILLA. Another migrant relief amendment to the Senate foreign aid bill was introduced by Senator Alex Padilla. The amendment would protect the children of longtime visa holders from aging out of their parents’ immigration status.
COUNT. Padilla hasn’t said if his amendment has the 60 senate votes needed to pass, so is unlikely to be attached to Afghan Adjustment, which is better for both proposals since the broad overlap of Senators who support both measures is not exact.
AFGHAN ADJUSTMENT
GOLAZO. The Afghan Adjustment Act would create a new citizenship pathway for roughly 70,000 migrants and would be the first amnesty Congress has passed since Reed lowkey attached the Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness to the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act.
OPPOSED. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) torpedoed the very bipartisan bill by claiming the migrant vetting standards were insufficient, then introducing a competing migrant relief proposal.
WACK. Yet somehow, Cotton's Bill ended up with much weaker vetting standards for applicants than those required in Afghan Adjustment. Cotton's bill also included an unrelated poison pill on parole that any American president from either party would obviously have to veto.
Cotton's incoherence on Afghan Adjustment is perhaps why so far he's kept mum to reporters asking for comment on Klobuchar's amendment which is expected to get at least 63 votes if Schumer puts it on the floor — which remains a big "if" at this writing.
Watch. This. Space.
Don't forget to support our underdog newsletter here.