House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has abandoned the House’s migrant crisis funding bill in favor of the Senate’s less radical version, which includes some of the Democrats’ many pro-migration priorities.
The concession was made as the House and Senate ran out of debating time prior to the July 4 recess, amid strong support from Senate Democrats for the Senate’s migration crisis funding bill.
But the concession is not a permanent defeat for House Democrats, who will likely include many of their pro-migration, anti-enforcement priorities in the pending homeland security funding bill.
The Senate migration crisis bill provides more than $1 billion to preserve the orderly inflow of many economic migrants into Americans’ workplaces and schools, and includes no spending to curb migration.
The Senate also ensures more than $3 billion to maintain the well-organized pipeline of so-called “Unaccompanied Alien Children” from Central America to their sponsors in the United States. Most of the sponsors are the youths’ parents and in-laws, many of whom are living illegally in the United States.
The Senate bill preserves the UAC pipeline because it includes a Democratic amendment which bars ICE from deporting the illegal immigrants who sign up as “sponsors.” In 2018, President Donald Trump’s enforcement officers began deporting illegals who revealed themselves while trying to pick up their children at shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Pelosi dropped the House’s version of the bill amid opposition from swing district Democrats. According to Politico:
The House had planned to vote Thursday on its amended version of the border package. But roughly 18 moderates vowed to oppose the bill on the floor, according to multiple sources familiar with the whip count.
Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla), a leader of the Blue Dog Coalition, confirmed that multiple moderates had been planning to buck the party on a procedural vote on the floor later Thursday.
“We have a significant number,” Murphy said. When asked if it was enough to tank the bill on the floor, “That is to be determined.”
GOP Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy had slammed the Democrats’ support for the UAC pipeline, which is jointly run by the Mexican cartels and U.S. federal agencies. In a floor speech on June 25, he said:
I’m not sure anybody’s read the bill. I’m not sure even those on the other side know what’s in it. Here’s how it’s worse — [it says the] Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services [HHS] cannot share information about the sponsors of [Unaccompanied Alien] children [UAC].
Think about that for one moment. They’re making sure two departments cannot share information in their own government. This [sharing] is necessary to ensure children are not placed with human traffickers or other predators.
The House version also include stealth rules that would block President Donald Trump’s border control strategies. These include the Remain in Mexico program, the metering initiative, and the pending rewrite of the Flores Settlement agreement, and his use of foreign aid to pressure more cooperation from Latin American countries. Those strategies appear to have reduced the catch and release of migrants by two-thirds in the last three weeks, according to data released by Breitbart News.
This should be DOA at the WH, but who really knows anymore?