Can Congress save the ‘dreamers’? It’s going to be awfully tricky.Washington Post, Sep 5, 2017, Paul Waldman
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But can Congress actually fix it?
The first thing to know is that there are already a number of bills circulating around Congress that could in theory be passed. The highest profile of these is the Dream Act of 2017, an updated version of the original bill that passed the House in 2010 but then fell victim to a filibuster in the Senate (saddest of all, that filibuster had the support of five Democrats — Kay Hagan, Mark Pryor, Ben Nelson, Jon Tester and Max Baucus — and had they voted for the bill, it would have passed). The 2017 Dream Act has a bipartisan group of co-sponsors (Republican Sen. Lindsay O. Graham and Democratic Sen. Richard J. Durbin are the main sponsors), and it would provide “dreamers” not only relief from the immediate threat of deportation but a path to citizenship.
It’s likely that the 2017 Dream Act will be the starting point for a lot of the discussion, but the other bills are as follows, in order from least to most generous:
•The Bridge Act (sponsored by Republican Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado, it essentially extends DACA for three years, with no path to citizenship)
•The Recognizing America’s Children Act (sponsored by Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, it does contain a path to citizenship, but under somewhat more stringent conditions)
•The American Hope Act (sponsored by Democrat Luis V. Gutiérrez of Illinois, it is the most inclusive and contains the swiftest path to citizenship for dreamers)
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The trouble is that individual members don’t care about what America thinks nearly as much as they care about what the people in their own districts think. And most of those in the House come from firmly conservative districts where the only thing they have to fear is a primary challenge from the right — a primary challenge that could come if they’re seen as too friendly to immigrants. Let’s not forget that Trump got elected with a campaign of naked nativism and xenophobia, as every Republican member of Congress knows all too well.
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And even if it passed the House, that would still leave the Senate, where the last Dream Act died and where there are more Republicans now than there were then. If you could hold on to all the Democrats — including Tester, who voted against the Dream Act in 2010, and Joe Manchin III (W.Va), who didn’t vote but said he opposed it — you’d still need to win over 12 Republicans in order to overcome the inevitable filibuster. That’s not impossible to imagine (Graham, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are already supporting the 2017 Dream Act), but it won’t be easy. They’ll be under enormous, angry pressure from the GOP base not to agree to anything that helps undocumented immigrants, even the most sympathetic ones.
More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/09/05/can-congress-save-the-dreamers-its-going-to-be-awfully-tricky/?utm_term=.247f4758c393
