As President Joe Biden lazily bicycled along the Delaware shore on Sunday, his administration was supposed to begin another airlift – this time ferrying Haitians illegally crossing the U.S. border at Del Rio, Texas, back to their homeland.
But on its surface, it’s fair to ask what’s the point, since Biden’s effort seems more for show than actual enforcement of the law.
After all, at the same time state and federal authorities were trying to figure out what to do with upward of 12,000 people camped out under a bridge at Del Rio in the last leg of their illegal entry into the United States, Democrats in Congress were pursuing a plan to grant amnesty to 8 million illegals already in America.
They were trying to ram through the amnesty initiative in Biden’s $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure”plan, which, if enacted, would provide items like tuition-free community college, government-paid family leave for all workers, and taxpayer-funded daycare.
Senate Democrats could do so by utilizing the budget reconciliation process, which would allow them to vote on it without GOP lawmakers being able to filibuster it – and likely pass it along a party-line vote.
But Democrats suffered a rare and momentary setback.
The Washington Times reported on Sunday that Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, who enforces the Senate’s rules governing debate and legislative activity, rejected the addition of amnesty to the massive spending measure.
As the Times explained, MacDonough acts as “the gatekeeper of the chamber’s rules, and under the budget process she is granted power to referee whether the policies included in the budget bill are actually focused on the budget, or merely incidental.”
“Democrats argued the effects of an amnesty would be hundreds of billions of dollars in government revenue and benefits over the coming decades, which meant it should qualify as a budget measure,” the Times reported.
But the ref said no.
MacDonough declared that the Democrats’ push creates “by any standard a broad, new immigration policy,” according to The Hill.
“The policy changes of this proposal far outweigh the budgetary impact scored to it and it is not appropriate for inclusion in reconciliation,” she wrote in her decision. “Changing the law to clear the way to LPR [legal permanent resident] status is a tremendous and enduring policy change that dwarfs its budgetary impact.”
Republicans praised MacDonough’s decision.
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told the Times, “I believe that using the reconciliation process to provide legal status to illegal immigrants would be a disaster. It would have led to an increased run on the border – beyond the chaos we already have there today.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, added, “Democrats will not be able to stuff their most radical amnesty proposals into the reckless taxing and spending spree they are assembling behind closed doors.”
Yet Democrats indicated that they won’t give up, as Sens. Richard Durbin and Alex Padilla told the Times liberals will present MacDonough an “alternative proposal” that they believe she will approve.
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