If the goal was to entice undeserving applicants, you couldn’t design a worse combination of policy and resources. In comparison, the bipartisan proposal is designed to deny more cases at the initial stage and get final decisions on all cases in a matter of months.

For immigration hardliners, the moment of leverage had finally arrived: More enforcement without amnesty. However, instead of seizing this likely once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, House Republicans and former President Trump argued that the bill was not the hardliner wish list they preferred and successfully convinced most Senate Republicans to block the bill.

This one-sided deal that favors Republican enforcement policy is unlikely to ever reappear. There has never been another moment this century when Democrats agreed to enforcement legislation without meaningful legalization provisions. Nor have they ever agreed to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to anywhere near the level needed to locate and deport millions of individuals already in the country illegally.

  • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Both sides? What exactly have the Democrats done or supported that is equal to what the Republicans are doing (e.g. putting up the razorwire you mentioned, letting asylum seekers drown, bussing and dumping misled and unprepared asylum seekers on the streets in northern cities in the middle of winter without even letting those cities know about the crisis they are creating)? As far as I know, the Democratic party has supported asylum and pathways to citizenship.