If, as has been suggested, Thursday's Senate votes were the most likely opportunity this year for the Senate to pass new legislation legalizing the young illegal immigrants known as "Dreamers," Republicans should remind voters this fall both of the unwillingness of Democrats to support a serious compromise bill on the issue and of the proposals the GOP insisted had to be part of such a bill.
President Donald Trump was elected in 2016 in part because of his strong stance against illegal immigration. And although some might see his support of legalization of "Dreamers" as a cave-in, the proposals he insisted be in a bill that legalized the "Dreamers" would help curtail future immigration.
He was seeking an end to chain migration, which according to The Washington Post, allows "U.S. citizens and legal residents to sponsor only immigrants who are their immediate relatives - spouses, children, siblings and parents - and the spouses and minor children of those immigrants."
One legal immigrant, then, could be responsible for bringing into the country a spouse, their grown children, the spouses of those grown children, the minor children of those grown children, any number of siblings, the spouses of those siblings, the minor children of those siblings, two parents, the spouses of those parents if they have remarried, and any minor children of those parents. Although there are annual numerical caps on adult children and siblings of U.S. citizens, and spouses and children of legal residents, the potential number of persons one legal resident could sponsor is astounding.
Trump also was seeking an end to the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, often known as the visa lottery. That program uses a computer lottery system to randomly issue up to 50,000 immigrant visas each year to qualified applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the U.S.
The president, in addition, was seeking money to boost security and build portions of a wall along the country's Southern border.
Democrats only wanted to promise money in exchange for citizenship for the "Dreamers," which is not much of a bargain. Money promised, after all, isn't money delivered. They know - because they've done it before - how easy it is to zero out such money if they control Congress.
We believe a compromise could be worked out by, for example, limiting chain migration to a spouse and by cutting the visa lottery to several thousand annually, but Democrats aren't interested in that. They are looking, frankly, at something for nothing. Republicans ought to remind voters of that from now to November.