Why Are Republicans Having So Much Trouble Passing An Immigration Bill?
And What’s In All These Proposed Bills We Keep Hearing About Anyway?
One of our most devoted readers sent us an email last week, pointing out that when all the various proposed immigration bills are discussed in the media, there’s next to no detail given about what’s in each one, what the problems/objections are, and why the only voice we hear is Trump’s. And that’s true: they generally get labeled with some shorthand characterization, and no more detail is given: “Hard-line”, “Compromise”, “Bipartisan”. We think a lot of the reason mainstream media doesn’t explain further or drill down is that every one of these bills has such a slim chance of passing, it’s not really worth the time. But it’s also not completely uninteresting, so we’re going to try to tackle it today.
First, there are a couple of issues that lay over everything:
- Trump is a moving target. The President says he will support any legislation from House Republicans these days, but then he hints he won’t, or that he’s going to look at what they may produce and “make changes”. Remember also Trump at one time had cut a deal with Democratic leadership: DACA in exchange for full funding of his wall. He then started adding stuff. The most concretely Trump has laid it out…
