Dems ready to back ‘votes on immigration’
Calif rejects initial plan
WASHINGTON, April 17, (Agencies): Virtually all Democrats are poised to join a group of Republicans calling for House votes this election year on immigration, an effort that seems unlikely to succeed but would cast a campaign-season spotlight on an issue Democrats think will help their Election Day prospects.
Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif, has gathered nearly 50 GOP co-sponsors on a procedural measure that would permit votes on four immigration bills. Those bills would include a conservative package that would limit legal immigration, a Democratic plan helping young “Dreamer” immigrants win citizenship and a bipartisan compromise.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis, has said he doesn’t want the House to vote on immigration bills that President Donald Trump won’t sign. Trump has backed the conservatives’ proposal, but it lacks the votes needed to clear the House.
Virtually every Democrat will join Denham, aides said Monday, enough for a House majority. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss the effort.
Even with most House members aboard, though, GOP leaders would not be required to bring the measure to a vote. But it would give Republicans like Denham, an immigration moderate with many Hispanic residents in his district, a chance to show he’s tried pushing the issue. It would also give Democrats an opportunity to accuse Republican leaders of scuttling the effort.
Democrats — and perhaps even a Republican — seem likely to go even further and collect signatures on a discharge petition, a rarely used procedure that would force immigration votes if a majority of lawmakers signed it. GOP leaders would be expected to try thwarting that effort by persuading Republicans who backed Denham’s measure to not sign the petition.
“We owe it to these young people to keep trying,” Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif, said Monday. Aguilar and Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, are co-sponsors of a compromise immigration bill, and Aguilar was among those gathering signatures of Democrats willing to support Denham’s effort.
Denham spokeswoman Jessica McFaul said he would not file a petition forcing votes.
Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong blamed Democrats for Congress’ immigration inaction and said he’d “continue to work” for a bill that protects so-called Dreamers — immigrants brought illegally to the US as children — and strengthens border security.
The Senate killed several bills in February aimed at protecting from deportation hundreds of thousands of Dreamers. Trump last year ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program established by President Barack Obama, which has been temporarily shielding those immigrants.
Democrats are hoping to capture House control this November. The effort to help Dreamers polls strongly, and Democrats think the issue could help them in districts with large numbers of immigrants and with moderate suburban voters.
California rejects plan:
California Governor Jerry Brown has rejected the Trump administration’s initial proposals for a National Guard mission along the state’s border with Mexico, a top US official said Monday.
Brown last week had said he would accept federal funding from President Donald Trump to boost his state’s National Guard.
But the governor has quibbled over their role and insisted they only focus on cross-border crime rather than detaining unauthorized migrants coming into the state that is home to several “sanctuary cities.”
Ron Vitiello, the acting deputy commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, said Brown had declined the initial roles put forward for Guardsmen. “The governor has determined that what we have asked for so far is unsupportable,” Vitiello told reporters.
“We’ve made this refined request, it’s gone through the process and then we’ve got a signal from the governor that he is not participating.”
Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Bob Salesses said the initial request envisioned sending 237 Guardsmen to two main crossing areas in Southern California, where they would have conducted maintenance, clerical assistance and helped with heavy equipment operations, among other tasks.
Felons deportations restricted:
The US Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that an immigration statute requiring the deportation of noncitizens who commit felonies is unlawfully vague in a decision that could limit the Trump administration’s ability to step up the removal of immigrants with criminal records.
The court, in a 5-4 ruling in which President Donald Trump’s conservative appointee Neil Gorsuch joined the court’s four liberal justices, sided with convicted California burglar James Garcia Dimaya, a legal immigrant from the Philippines.
The court upheld a 2015 lower court ruling that the Immigration and Nationality Act provision requiring Dimaya’s deportation created uncertainty over which crimes may be considered violent, risking arbitrary enforcement in violation of the US Constitution.
The ruling helps clarify the criminal acts for which legal immigrants may be expelled at a time of intense focus on immigration issues in the United States as Trump seeks to increase deportations of immigrants who have committed crimes.
Dimaya came to the United States from the Philippines as a legal permanent resident in 1992 at age 13. He lived in the San Francisco Bay area.
Federal authorities ordered Dimaya deported after he was convicted in two California home burglaries, in 2007 and 2009, though neither crime involved violence. He received a two-year prison sentence for each conviction.
In 2010, the government sought to deport Dimaya. The Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals, an administrative body that applies immigration laws, refused to cancel his expulsion because the relevant law defined burglary as a “crime of violence.”