House Republican leaders say they don’t want migrant families to be separated at the border. Yet in peak House form, their strategy to solve the problem involves a partisan bill that has little chance of becoming law. And don’t ask if they have a backup plan lined up—“This bill is Plan B, by the way, for us to begin with,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said of the immigration reform package during a press conference Wednesday morning.
They are pushing a broader immigration bill to address family separation amid public outcry concerning the 2,000-plus children who have been taken away from their parents by immigration authorities in the past month. The legislation would allow families to be detained together indefinitely, rather than separately, as adults are prosecuted for illegal entry. It would also deal with longstanding policy questions including border security funding and DACA. GOP leaders are expected to bring the bill up for a vote in the House on Thursday.
But on Wednesday morning, members and aides said the legislation didn’t yet have enough support to pass the chamber, let alone the Senate, where Democratic support is required to pass major legislation. Senate Democrats support a measure offered by Dianne Feinstein instead, and some say that Congress shouldn’t have to pass a bill to end a problem of the executive branch’s creation.
Speaker Ryan, however, is unfazed by such considerations.
“Right now, we’re focused on getting this bill passed,” Ryan answered when asked whether he would consider other options to tackle family separation if the GOP leadership’s immigration bill is indeed unable to become law. “The president came to our conference yesterday and asked members to support this bill. That is our focus. If other things happen, we’ll cross those bridges when we get to it.”
The fact, of course, remains that President Donald Trump could end his administration’s policy of family separation right now if he wanted to, without waiting for Congress to pass a contentious immigration reform measure. As has been pointed out by TWS fact checker Holmes Lybrand, there is no law mandating family separations at the border. The Trump administration’s recently employed “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting all immigrants taken in by Border Patrol upon entry has led to the uptick in family separations. “The president alone can fix it with a flick of a pen by signing a presidential order to end the agonizing screams of small children who have been separated from their parents,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday. (Trump, after previously arguing that only Congress could remedy the situation, now appears poised to sign an order to do so, perhaps as soon as Wednesday afternoon.)
But when asked whether he had pressed Trump to alter the administration’s policy, Ryan hedged and pointed once again to the House GOP’s immigration bill. “[Trump] asked us to pass this legislation, which stops this policy for good,” said Ryan.
Ryan’s comments differed widely from those of his Republican colleagues in the Senate, some of whom have called on Trump to end the policy. “President Trump could stop this policy with a phone call,” said one of Trump’s allies, South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham. Others, such as Texas Republican Ted Cruz, have introduced legislative proposals to fix the problem.
Cruz’s bill would aim to make the immigration system more efficient by increasing the number of federal immigration judges, and would provide funds for additional shelters for families during proceedings. Other solutions are on the table, as well—Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said during a press conference Tuesday that Senate Republicans unanimously agreed that the chamber should pursue a targeted fix, which could be passed as an amendment in an unrelated bill. “My hope is this is not going to be something we’re going to do over a matter of weeks and months but something we can do over a matter of days, hopefully this week,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn.
But House Republicans, for now, aren’t looking beyond Thursday’s vote.
“Now let’s wait and see what happens,” said New York Republican Dan Donovan. He declined to take a position when asked whether Congress should take up a separate family separation measure if the bill is unable to become law.
“Let the Senate decide whether it’s going to pass or not,” said Donovan.
