On Sunday, the Senate parliamentarian told Democrats they can’t pass their sweeping immigration agenda as part of their massive $3.5 trillion “budget reconciliation” bill. She was right on a lot more than just the legal merits.
Among other things, the legislation would’ve granted lasting legal status and a path to citizenship to the Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought into the country as minors — and also for adult migrants who entered under Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, rules.
The parliamentarian just did her job: The immigration stuff doesn’t remotely qualify as a simple adjustment to the budget, so it needs to pass the usual hurdles, including the Senate filibuster.
The larger issue is that America’s immigration impasse can only be resolved by bipartisan compromise. Yes, most voters favor legalizing the Dreamers. But they also want the borders controlled, even with a wall as part of the answer.
They also back the Remain in Mexico policy for asylum seekers, perhaps because they know that many migrants released into the interior never show for their court dates, even as most applicants for asylum don’t wind up qualifying.
The far left hates restrictions on illegal immigration. Some on the far right would stop most legal immigration. Both are wrong; the right deal is a centrist compromise.
Rather than trying for an end run that panders to the left, President Biden should be working for such a lasting solution — the kind of bipartisanship that he’s promised from the start but never pursued. A bill that gives Dreamers a path to citizenship, coupled with stronger border enforcement.
But this also requires no more moving goalposts: Even on the narrow issue of the Dreamers, the left’s now-sidelined plan redefined the group to be far larger than the few million qualified for earlier “amnesties” to include anyone who came here illegally while under 18 just two years ago.
Adding in the TPS cohort is another stretch, since these migrants were admitted on an explicitly temporary basis.
Another problem is Biden’s reversal of the Trump policies, including Remain in Mexico, that had reduced the border surge. The thousands of Haitians camped this side of the Rio Grande are just the latest sign that this president prefers an endless tide of border-crossers to doing anything that will anger the left.
And the left prefers leaving the Dreamers and any compromise in limbo, even as the impasse adds ever more people with no legal status. Hmm: How many of the Haitians now at the border will they consider to be “Dreamers” in a year or so?