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The occupier of the Oval Office had a massive loss on the Senate floor Thursday, when the immigration legislation he demanded went down in humiliating flames, garnering just 39 votes in support to 60 against.
At the same time, however, none of the four amendments the Senate considered passed. They all required 60 votes for passage. The first bipartisan stab at it from Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE) and John McCain (R-AZ), which provides for a path to citizenship for Dreamers and border security funding failed 52-47. A completely unrelated and totally political defunding of sanctuary cities from Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) failed 54-45. The big bipartisan hope from the "Common Sense Coalition" also failed 54-45.
Throughout this process, though, the big lie that Republicans wanted to find a way to protect Dreamers has been exposed. None of them has a problem at all with deporting all of the young people brought to this country by their parents. The entire process of Trump demanding legislation to keep the Dreamers in this country—after he arbitrarily and capriciously ended the program last fall—and McConnell pretending to allow that legislation to move forward has been a scam. The votes in the Senate today proved that.
As of now, Dreamers remain unprotected. That is Trump's fault. What happens next is unclear. There's a massive spending bill later in March, when the current continuing resolution expires and something could potentially be attached to that. If that happens, Democrats need to take one lesson out of today's debacle: don't give in to any of Trump's extremist demands. Even his own party isn't united behind him on them.