Discussion: Hostility From Trump And House GOP Looms Over Senate Immigration Talks

[doctorbiobrain]

@kirkbross

Democrats are going to have to let the GOP throw the dreamers under the bus. This is like negotiating with terrorists. Ending DACA was done intentionally to gain leverage.

Democrats can’t let the Dreamers get thrown under the bus and hardliners in the Whitehouse had Trump end DACA because they genuinely hate all immigrants and was throwing the anti-immigrant crowd a bone, and this only gave us leverage by doing so.

Trump had already talked about Dreamers before that and said how it’d be wrong to deport them and I’m sure he was being honest. He’s a man who has used illegal labor and imports Haitian immigrants for his golf course; he definitely isn’t opposed to Dreamers. But if John Kelly, Stephen Miller, or other hardliners are in the room, they get him to change his mind. I’m sure he’d sign a clean DACA bill if they didn’t get to him first.

What’s going to happen is that we’ll fight over a comprehensive immigration bill, which will die. Then they’ll pretend to work on DACA fix with poison pills, and it dies. We’ll go to shutdown the government, and there’s a good chance we win on Dreamers; while giving up more than we wanted on something else. Then the anti-immigrant people will be upset and Trump has half a year to offend liberals enough to get them back on board. The only other outcome is that we give up on Dreamers and lose the midterms.

[bboerner]

Negotiations in the Senate on an immigration package that would protect the group of young immigrants known as Dreamers has kicked into high gear, with dozens of Democratic and Republican lawmakers meeting almost daily to attempt to craft a plan before their self-imposed deadline of Feb. 8. But as the senators boast to reporters about their bipartisan bonhomie and progress toward a deal, a fear hangs over the negotiations: that conservatives in the House of Representatives and a mercurial President advised by immigration hardliners will shoot down whatever they manage to produce.

“We’re caught in this vortex where Trump won’t negotiate and Republicans won’t support anything that Trump won’t sign,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told TPM.

This needs to be front and center. No matter how successful Senate Dems are negotiating a clean or only slightly dingy DACA deal it won’t matter if the fire-bombers in the House / WH torch it.

And torching Senate Ds for not being able to prevent this won’t help. #unity

[joelopines]

@phlebas

for this to work, you will have to lock Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan in a closet.

Preferably with Hannibal Lecter.

[joelopines]

@doctorbiobrain

most likely only won due to a third party siphoning votes from two Republicans who weren’t very popular.

I’ve seen no proof that Perot took more votes from Bush than from Clinton. You got any? Thought not.