Republicans have a big immigration mess on their hands, and it’s of their own creation. Donald Trump talks about immigration nonstop, but beyond pushing for tens of billions of dollars to build a wall and demonizing brown people, he isn’t consistently behind one policy, putting congressional Republicans in a difficult spot. And congressional Republicans are fully capable of manufacturing their own difficult spots.
House Republicans are, as usual, being driven by the far-right extremist Freedom Caucus, but Freedom Caucus members can be counted on to be angry no matter how much they get their own way, while the so-called moderate House Republicans (most of whom would have been considered far-right 15 years ago) are more vocal about their unhappiness with Republican immigration policy than usual. Then there are Senate Republicans, who are trying to look like adults for the benefit of the media, which means nothing they do will have any chance of passing the House.
Basically, Trump and House Republicans never saw a brown child they didn’t want to make into a hostage for worse policies:
Indeed, a House GOP source said Trump was asking for wall money to be included in any standalone legislation keeping families together — a nonstarter for many lawmakers.
Conservatives, meanwhile, have also suggested that they need hard-line policy riders to sweeten the pot and win their support for any immigration bill. Some have eyed a family separation bill as a chance to tighten asylum laws they say are abused, but moderate Republicans would likely resist.
Hundreds of thousands of people around the country rallied against just those policies on Saturday, but Republicans are determined to continue to search for the cruelest possible proposals, fighting with each other all the while.
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