What the country lost because of Trump’s vulgarity
Amid the uproar over President Trump’s reference to “shithole countries,” consider what the country lost along with more of our reputation.
With his comment, Trump nixed a sensible, bipartisan compromise on immigration — the issue with solutions that most Americans support but which a noisy minority keeps out of reach. It was a sad replay of 2013.
Last Monday, Trump met with lawmakers. From that meeting came Trump’s call for senators to craft an immigration deal that included protection for “Dreamers.” Trump himself jeopardized them by rescinding President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals plan and asking Congress to bail him out.
Six senators — three from each party — began talking. The group included Democrat Richard Durbin and Republican Lindsey Graham. They had been members of the self-described “Gang of Eight” that negotiated the 2013 immigration reform bill.
Last Thursday, according to The Washington Post, Durbin called Trump shortly after 10 a.m. to tell him that the senators had a deal. Trump asked if Graham agreed. Durbin said yes. Trump told Durbin that he would meet with the group at noon.
When they arrived, however, Trump was with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a congressional hardliner on immigration, and likeminded lawmakers. Trump rejected the deal for which he had asked. Then came lots of profanity, including the “shithole countries” remark. Or maybe, as some of Trump’s more desperate apologists contend, he actually said “shithouse.” Either way, the bipartisan deal collapsed. The Post reported that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly also pushed back on the compromise. Kelly, who previously ran the Department of Homeland Security, is a hardliner on immigration himself. He told Trump that the senators’ plan would hurt the president’s “agenda.”
That “agenda” includes Trump’s wall along the Mexican border. New developments likely contributed to Trump’s resistance.
The administration recently touted the fact that arrests on the southern border were at a 17-year low. Administration officials credited the “Trump effect” because of the president’s policy to go after immigrants just for entering illegally, not for committing serious crimes.
More recently, however, that trend has shifted. The New York Times reported that more than 40,000 migrants tried to cross the border in December — twice the number from last spring. Among other reasons, the “Trump effect” is weakening.
We were here five years ago. Those eight senators worked with the Obama administration and produced comprehensive immigration reform that the Senate passed 68-32. Fourteen Republicans, including Marco Rubio, voted for it.
For those who considered border security the priority, the legislation called for hiring 19,200 Border Patrol agents, building another 700 miles of fences and adding more mobile surveillance and ground sensors. The total number of agents would have been 12,000 more than Trump wants.
Yet the bill also allowed Dreamers to seek legal status more quickly. It added enough court staff to let judges consider removal cases more carefully. It allowed illegal immigrants to seek legal status — and eventually citizenship — but none could apply until some of those border security changes were in place.
Employers got a program called “W” that would have allowed immigrants to work temporarily. Unions supported the idea. The bill increased permanent visas for foreigners who had graduated from American universities and temporary visas for high-skilled workers, based on demand.
The bill even cut back on “chain migration,” by which family members can join new immigrants. Trump opposes that and the visa lottery program. The 2013 legislation eliminated visas for married sons and daughters over 31 and siblings. All Democrats in the Senate voted for it.
Yet right-wind media yelped, “Amnesty!” The Republican-led House never took up the bill. Many “Freedom Caucus” members who killed that bipartisan compromise now favor a partisan bill that Democrats won’t oppose and won’t help the country.
Most Americans agree with key parts of that 2013 bill, including a pathway to citizenship for those here illegally who qualify. Presumably, most Americans also agree with what Graham told Trump after the “shithole” remark — “America is an idea, not a race” — and disagree with the neoNazi website that called the comment “encouraging.” If not, maybe Trump’s comment applies to this country.
Email Randy Schultz: randy@bocamag.com