House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earned the wrath of the progressive left this week after caving to Republicans in the latest immigration feud to rock Capitol Hill.
With the speaker’s sanction, the House passed on Thursday the Senate’s $4.6 billion bill to fund federal agencies caring for immigrants in detention. The bipartisan legislation, which progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) slammed as too vague, is now headed to the president’s desk.
Making a deal
In an overwhelming majority, the Senate passed a funding bill Thursday to address the humanitarian crisis at the border. The $4.6 bill set aside money for federal departments that care for migrants in detention, particularly unaccompanied immigrant children, but did not include many stipulations sought by liberals in a House version of the bill.
Progressives wanted Pelosi to reject the Senate bill, which includes funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and pass the House’s version instead, which would block money for ICE, as well as border barriers, asylum reform, and other measures to enforce immigration law. The House bill also included safety standards for the treatment of migrants by immigration authorities, as well as funding for accommodations for illegal immigrants, including legal services, and translators.
Progressives were not happy Thursday after Pelosi, who briefly fought for the more liberal House version on Wednesday, reversed position under pressure from Republicans, the White House, and moderate Democrats. Pelosi also discussed the bill with President Donald Trump on Wednesday and Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday before saying that she would, regretfully, take up the Senate bill.
“In order to get resources to the children fastest, we will reluctantly pass the Senate bill,” she wrote in a letter to Democrats. “As we pass the Senate bill, we will do so with a Battle Cry as to how we go forward to protect children in a way that truly honors their dignity and worth.”
Border bill blowback
The Senate’s version of the bill, which includes $1 billion in funding to feed and shelter migrants apprehended by border agents and $3 billion for unaccompanied migrant children in the care of Department of Health and Human Services, passed in the House late Thursday, 305-102, after moderate Democrats joined Republicans and rallied support.
Ninety Democrats opposed the bill, including Ocasio-Cortez, who in a series of tweets Thursday blasted Pelosi’s surrender as a virtual blank check for the Trump administration to misuse for more nefarious purposes — like enforcing the law — and suggested that Democrats could stay in Washington through the July 4 recess to strike a more satisfying deal.
This Senate Bill will have us write a $4.6 Billion blank check (incl military $) for the border w NO accountability – just a verbal pinky promise.
Trump is not to be trusted with protecting our immigrants. Why must that even be stated? We need hard lines of protection, in ink. https://t.co/xFci23pFo6
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 27, 2019
AOC also retweeted the 38-member Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which criticized the Senate bill for a lack of “guardrails” against abuse by immigration officials.
“The problem right now and the question at hand is [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell sent us a bill and we’re putting a big check mark on it instead of even trying to negotiate,” AOC added in an interview with CNN. “What Mitch McConnell is doing is relying on the time pressure of recess.”
Cracking under pressure
With the July 4 recess just days away, pressure was on Pelosi to side with Republicans over her party’s progressives and pass the Senate’s version. Pelosi passed the House version Tuesday, but her efforts to appease the left unraveled after Republicans hammered Democrats for holding up the desperately needed money.
Recent media reports of migrants suffering in overcrowded detention centers added urgency for Congress to act. An image of a father who drowned with his toddler while attempting to cross the Rio Grande painted a disturbing visual of the border crisis, which only months ago Pelosi and other Democrats had called “manufactured.”
Pelosi originally scheduled a House vote Thursday to push the progressives’ demands, but she lost leverage after moderate Democrats in groups like the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus rallied behind the Senate bill.
The House’s version would certainly have died in the Senate anyway, which has become a graveyard for House Democrat bills under the leadership of Sen. McConnell (R-KY). McConnell sternly rejected any demands from Democrats to shoe-horn their own demands into the Senate version, as he insisted on the passage of the “clean” bill.
“The Shelby-Leahy legislation has unified the Appropriations Committee. It has unified the Senate. The administration would sign it into law,” McConnell said in a statement. “So all our House colleagues need to do to help the men, women, and children on the border this week is pass this unifying bipartisan bill and send it on to the president.”
No comments: