Campaign Action
It’ll soon be two months since the six-month deadline Donald Trump gave the Republican-led Congress to pass permanent protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. Instead, the Republican-led Congress has passed none, and Trump has done his darndest to torpedo any bipartisan efforts.
But early Wednesday, a group of bipartisan House members announced they had support—237 votes—for a rare “Queen of the Hill” resolution, which would put four separate immigration bills up for a vote. That is, if Republican leadership allows it. According to advocates, if they don’t, there’s majority support between Democrats and a group of Republicans to bypass them and force a discharge petition, also a rarity, which would bring the resolution to the floor for a vote.
“If outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) refuses to let the House work its will,” said the Center for American Progress in a statement, “every member that supports this rule must agree to force the speaker’s hand and support a discharge petition. They cannot remain silent.” America’s Voice concurred: “If this is serious, you will translate your demands into a discharge petition, the forcing mechanism available to House members when leadership refuses to budge.”
Last year, Ryan told a concerned DACA recipient that she had nothing to worry about. “I can see that you love your daughter,” he told her, “and you are a nice person who has a great future ahead of you, and I hope your future is here." He has the power to bring up a bill to protect her and keep her family together, but hasn’t.
“We desperately want Dreamers protected,” America’s Voice continued, “and we desperately want the Hill to schedule floor votes as called for by the bipartisan group pushing for a Queen of the Hill process. But we are skeptical. The President and the GOP leadership has fought tooth and nail to keep a reasonable bipartisan deal from being enacted, and more moderate Republicans in the House have yet to show the backbone required to move the body into action. We hope that this time we move from letters and press conferences to courageous action and floor votes.”
Enough is enough: immigrant youth deserve real leadership. “The only way to protect Dreamers is to break congressional leadership’s stranglehold on the process that has to date prevented the House from tackling this important issue,” said Tom Jawetz, vice president of Immigration Policy at CAP. “Anything less is pure spectacle.”