House GOP bill could face Trump-size roadblock
WASHINGTON — House Republicans who plan on moving forward with an immigration bill this week have a fastgrowing obstacle before them: President Trump.
And if the history of his administration so far is any guide, Trump will prove a far more formidable opponent than Democrats.
But Republicans — including Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee — don’t seem to realize that. And that could be a costly mistake in the midterms.
McCaul expressed optimism that the so-called “compromise” bill, which would allow families detained at the border to remain together, would create a path to citizenship for 1.8 million “dreamers,” boost border security and curtail some legal immigration could pass with Trump’s blessing.
“I did talk to the White House. They did say the president is still 100 percent behind us,” McCaul said yesterday on “Fox News Sunday.”
McCaul clearly didn’t see Trump’s Twitter feed.
Days after telling Republicans not to bother passing a bill until after the midterm elections, yesterday Trump called for immediate deportation of border crossers without due process, digging his heels in on the issue in a way designed to please his supporters.
The tweet also came days after Trump made a rare course reversal on his tough immigration talk by signing an executive order stopping children from being separated from detained family members as images of those kids horrified Americans. But we have learned that Trump does not like to retreat — and when forced to do so, he boomerangs back in defiance.
Consider the prepared statement he made after the deadly Charlottesville attack when he called out hate groups, only to swing back one day later to declare there were “very fine people on both sides.” Since then he hasn’t looked back, decrying the removal of Confederate monuments as an erasure of “our culture,” and pushing the NFL to outlaw player protests of police brutality against black Americans.
Consider also the last effort at an immigration bill, which he promised to sign until administration hardliners, including Chief of Staff John Kelly, reminded him of his base support. Trump torpedoed it.
The Congress is, of course, a separate and co-equal branch of government, with the power to pass a bill and send it to Trump’s desk, essentially calling his bluff. Such a move could also give members of Congress some political cover ahead of the midterms, as Democrats stand ready to blast Republicans for turning their backs on a growing humanitarian crisis.
But recent history has shown that too is an unlikely outcome — the House Republicans will likely back down before Trump’s opposition again.