John McCain Joins Dems' Dreamer Movement in Effort to Stop Trump's Border Wall
Sen. John McCain has gone out of his way to appear to be “bipartisan” on a number of occasions. What that really means, for those unfamiliar with how the media defines “bipartisan,” is that he’s a functional Democrat.
On keeping Obamacare alive, McCain pretty much acted as an agent of the Democrats. On President Donald Trump’s agenda, McCain has yet again acted as if he were a member of the other party. He was even used as a sort of emissary for the now-discredited Trump dossier — again, carrying water for the Democrats.
The Arizona senator is back in the donkey’s saddle again, this time on immigration. According to The Washington Post, along with Delaware Democrat Sen. Chris Coons, he’s proposing a “bipartisan” immigration plan that would effectively block the wall along our southern border, and give in to the Democrats completely when it comes to former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for illegal immigrants.
The bill, introduced Monday, “would grant permanent legal status to undocumented immigrants known as ‘dreamers’ and start bolstering security along the U.S.-Mexico border,” according to The Post’s report.
“But the measure would not immediately authorize spending the $25 billion President Trump is seeking to fortify the border with new wall and fence construction. Some Republicans are seeking at least $30 billion.”
That’s not where the problems end, however. The legislation “would grant legal status to dreamers who have been in the country since 2013 — a larger pool of undocumented immigrants than the 1.8 million Trump supports legalizing.”
“The bill says nothing about curbing family-based legal migration or making changes to the diversity lottery program — two other priorities for Trump and conservative Republicans,” The Post adds.
The bill is pretty much a non-starter. It would require either the president to sign it or a significant number of Republicans to embrace it in order to override a veto.The first route, as one might expect, was closed off to McCain and Coons with great speed; in a tweet, the president called the bill “a total waste of time,” probably not a good augury for obtaining Trump’s signature.
Any deal on DACA that does not include STRONG border security and the desperately needed WALL is a total waste of time. March 5th is rapidly approaching and the Dems seem not to care about DACA. Make a deal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2018
As for whether McCain’s legislation would gain much Republican acceptance, it would be hard to imagine too many GOP legislators vigorously championing a plan that offers greater amnesty than DACA provided with almost nothing in return.
Part of the reason a border wall is needed is that the Democrats have made empty promises about maintaining border security in the past.
The former administration rarely made border security a priority, only trumpeting increasing numbers of Border Patrol agents and desultory fence-building along high-risk areas of the border when congressional Republicans put the pressure on. Yet, the Obama administration scuttled a program to build a high-tech border fence approved by Congress in 2006, arguing it was ineffective.
Any “barrier” that isn’t permanent is easy to dismantle, which is what the Democrats will do when and if they get the chance. That’s likely to scare off any GOP votes aside from McCain’s usual pals in the RINO pen, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Otherwise, this is McCain being McCain.
I feel consistently obliged to honor the Arizona Senator’s service to his country both through the military and the legislature, as well as to express nothing but sympathy for the disease he’s fighting. That said, his late-hour push to establish some sort of legacy as a bridge-builder, first via Obamacare and now immigration, has only increased partisan rancor. That’s because there was no actual bridge-building. He simply jumped onto the Democrat side of the river and hoped everyone would assume he had built himself a viaduct to get over there.
If the Democrats want to negotiate, President Trump very clearly outlined where the negotiations start during his State of the Union speech. McCain’s push isn’t even close to meeting anything that the GOP would be willing to sign off on. The fact that John McCain has put his name to this half-hearted attempt by the Democrats is yet another blot on an increasingly stained career, one that accomplishes nothing while allowing the opposition to say, “See, we tried to work with the Republicans on immigration, but the far-right shot us down.”
Nice job.
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