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A bipartisan group of Senate negotiators has done the hard and necessary work to craft a compromise agreement on immigration policy that would make the southern border more secure while still ensuring that America remains a refuge for those fleeing persecution around the globe.
We don’t think it is a perfect bill by any means, but that is what is needed to shake Washington officials from their long-slumbering inaction on federal immigration policy. It has long been clear that neither side is going to get everything they want in this debate. Trying to do so — or trying to dupe the American public into believing that an all-or-nothing approach is even possible in a divided government and the divided country it represents — is a guaranteed way to make sure nothing changes, nothing gets better, and we keep having the same fruitless conversations and spiraling challenges.
“The legislation is by no means perfect, but it would address our border humanitarian and national security crisis and is a substantial improvement over the chaos and lawlessness that characterize the border now,” Republican Sen. Susan Collins said in a statement.
We wish more of her Republican colleagues shared her pragmatism in supporting an improved, if imperfect, approach.
So it is beyond disappointing to watch as the Senate deal seems to be falling apart ahead of a potential procedural vote on Wednesday. There is opposition from both the political left and the right, to be sure. The clearest and largest impediment, however, is the shifting and cynical position of many congressional Republicans. They can’t seem to decide what they want in this debate — other than to cling tightly to the border as an issue to campaign on rather than an issue to address.
“The question is, do they want to solve the border crisis or not. If they do, this is the best opportunity in years, and it may not come around again,” independent Sen. Angus King said on MSNBC on Tuesday morning. “And it looks like what’s happening is, and this certainly is coming from Mr. Trump, is they want the issue not the solution.”
In broad terms, Republicans are getting a lot of what they asked for in the deal released this week, and somehow it’s still seemingly not good enough. They wanted to condition foreign aid (including for Ukraine and Israel) on a border deal, and they’ve gotten that. That’s how lawmakers arrived here in the first place.
Conservatives often say they want to stop illegal immigration and support legal immigration. That is what this bill would work to do. It would give the president new authority and requirements to effectively shut down the border between official ports of entry when there are high numbers of border arrivals, as there are now. It would tighten and speed up the asylum process, while also allowing asylum seekers to work sooner and provide for themselves and their families, which could help relieve financial challenges in several Maine communities. It would dedicate billions of dollars to security and processing measures, including more funding for immigration judges. It would expand work and family visas for immigrants here legally, and provide a much-needed pathway to legal residency for Afghans, some of whom worked closely with the U.S. military, who had to flee after the U.S. withdrawal.
If this deal is truly such a gift to the political left, as Donald Trump has railed about, then why has the National Border Patrol Council, a labor union for Border Patrol agents and staff, endorsed it? If support from Border Patrol agents mattered so much to Trump and Republicans during the previous presidential election, surely the council’s endorsement of this bill should matter to them now.
From our perspective, the deal certainly falls short in some respects, like its failure to provide more widespread protections for so-called Dreamers who were brought to this country illegally as children. But as ever, perfect must not be the enemy of good.
If Senate Republicans want to be cautious and deliberate in reviewing the details of this recently released text, that would be one thing. But if they fail to meaningfully engage with this deal ( which they requested), they would be missing another opportunity to improve the U.S. immigration system and failing in their responsibility to address an issue facing the country.
We continue to hope that Congress, particularly Republicans, prove that they can put pragmatism ahead of presidential election year politics and pass this needed legislation to update and improve our immigration system.
