Update: immigration, DACA amnesty

Neil Munro at Breitbart reports:

President Donald Trump and a group of GOP senators quickly rejected a DACA amnesty deal pushed by Sen. Lindsey Graham on Thursday afternoon – but left the door open to future negotiations.

They will now wait until after the Supreme Court decides on the legality of Barack Obama’s work permit giveaway to 800,000 younger illegals, says multiple media reports.

NumbersUSA adds (via subscriber newsletter):

Other Senators reported at the White House meeting represented some mixed immigration positions: Ted Cruz of Texas, Kevin Cramer of South Dakota, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Martha McSally of Arizona, Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and David Perdue of Georgia.

Sens. Tillis and McSally would be open to joining Graham in supporting a mass amnesty, particularly if it came with the right tradeoffs. Sen. Tillis, along with Sen. Johnson, is looking for an expansion of guest worker programs. Sen. McSally would likely be willing to trade amnesty for increased border security in Arizona.

Thankfully, Sens. Cotton and Cruz were also in attendance. Both Senators have pushed back against the idea of granting a permanent amnesty to DACA recipients. Coincidently, Sen. Cotton slammed the Trump Administration's decision to increase the number of low-skilled H-2B visas for FY 2020 via Twitter while the meeting was taking place.

For now, the issue is still up in the air, and the NumbersUSA Action Alert to fax or call Senators is probably better implemented closer to the Supreme Court’s decision, expected in June.

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Sen. Portman votes to obstruct again

cartoon by Michael Ramirez

  

Sean Moran at Breitbart reports:

Senate Passes Democrat Motion
to End Border Wall National Emergency

Senate Democrats passed Wednesday a motion to end President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to build a wall along the southern border.

The Senate passed S.J. Res. 54, 54-41, which would terminate President Trump’s national emergency declaration on the southern border. The resolution was created by Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) and co-sponsored by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Susan Collins (R-ME).

Sen. Collins said the bill is not about “whether you’re for or against a border wall.” The Maine senator, who is up for a tough reelection fight in 2020, claimed that she has “consistently supported” funding for physical barriers on the southern border.

However, Congress has failed to provide significant funding to help secure America’s southern border by building a border wall. With Congress’ failure to provide funding, President Trump declared a national emergency to build the border wall, which diverted military funding so that the president can build a wall along the southern border.

The Republicans that voted for the resolution to end the national emergency to build a border wall are Sens. Collins, Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rob Portman (R-OH).

. . .

Congressional Democrats failed to pass the resolution to override Trump’s national emergency in March, which failed to override the president’s veto.

This latest attempt will probably also fail despite the RINOs and the media’s best efforts.

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No repeal of Obamacare, again. Thanks GOP.

art credit: huffington post

The GOP members of Congress who put the repeal of Obamacare to a vote dozens of times during the previous administration [per Treehouse, the Senate considered only defunding Obamacare, not repealing], and the GOP candidates who pledged to repeal Obamacare in order to get elected, were all lying through their teeth. They never dreamed that Trump would be elected and that they’d be put on the spot to make good on their promises. And take a look at the two GOP Senators who just announced their intention to vote no! From the AP :

WASHINGTON (AP) — The latest GOP effort to repeal and replace "Obamacare" was fatally wounded in the Senate Monday night when two more Republican senators announced their opposition to legislation strongly backed by President Donald Trump.

The announcements from Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas left the Republican Party's long-promised efforts to get rid of President Barack Obama's health care legislation reeling. Next steps, if any, were not immediately clear.

Lee and Moran both said they could not support Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's legislation in its current form. They joined GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky, both of whom announced their opposition right after McConnell released the bill last Thursday.

McConnell is now at least two votes short in the closely divided Senate and may have to go back to the drawing board or even begin to negotiate with Democrats, a prospect he's threatened but resisted so far.

Some of us had higher hopes for Mike Lee and even Rand Paul. Lesson learned: they are all politicians. And they lie.

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