Dems appear ready to capitulate on Wall funding for DACA deal, but it won’t be enough
Rep Gutierrez: “We’ll build him a wall. Tell us how high you want it. But free the dreamers”
We are now in Day 2 of the government shutdown, and things are not moving favorably for the Democrats, and they know it.
One sign may be that some leading Democrats are talking about capitulating on funding a wall on the Mexican border.
The Wall is symbolic in many ways.
It’s a campaign promise Trump made to the derision of Democrats and Mexicans. Whether it’s a physical barrier the length of the entire border, or a physical barrier covering just most of the border, it’s more than a physical barrier politically.
The Wall goes to the heart of the open border dispute – liberals don’t want it because they don’t want a border, and a wall symbolizes a border. It will serve as a reminder of U.S. sovereignty in a world where a generation of students have been schooled that U.S. sovereignty is racist.
So The Wall has become a test of political power. Trump wants it, Dems don’t want it.
Trump has made The Wall a non-negotiable point in DACA negotiations, and it has driven Dems to near madness because it forces them to choose between two irreconcilable demands from their base: No border and a DACA deal.
The government shutdown is not working to Democrats favor, and they know it. When it comes to funding the budget, Democrats put DACA ahead of the rest of the nation, including the military. That is a losing proposition, and Democrats are squirming when even loyal Democrat newspapers frame the shutdown as created by Democrats in the Senate.
Against the backdrop of The Wall and shutdown dispute is the fact that generic ballot polling, which had been used to predict a Democrat landslide in November 2018, is tightening substantially since the tax reform bill. CNN reports:
As the midterm election year begins, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds the Democratic advantage on a generic congressional ballot has tightened to a narrow 5 points among registered voters, but those voters who say they are most enthusiastic about turning out to vote this fall favor Democrats by a wide 15-point margin.
The new poll’s 49% Democrat to 44% Republican margin among registered voters is almost identical to Democrats’ standing in January of 2006, the last midterm election year in which they made significant gains in the House of Representatives.
But it represents a large shift from CNN polls conducted in the past three months, in which Democrats held double-digit advantages over the Republicans. Preferences among all adults have shifted less dramatically, but are also tighter than last fall, with Democrats currently 10 points ahead of Republicans among all Americans.
The CNN finding is consistent with other recent generic ballot polling, as The Hill reports:
Democrats’ lead in House generic ballot polling for the 2018 midterm elections has fallen to single digits according to a poll released Thursday.
An NPR—PBS NewsHour—Marist poll found that when voters were asked which party’s candidate they’d more likely vote for in their district, 46 percent of registered voters said Democrats, while 40 percent went with Republicans. Nine percent are undecided.
That shows a sizable decline from December polling, which found Democrats leading by 13 points on generic ballot polling.
Thursday’s poll found more welcome news for Republicans among registered voters who identify as independents.
Among those voters, Republicans led by 2 points, with 38 percent of those voters saying they’d vote for the GOP candidate, while 36 percent said the Democratic candidate. In December, polling found that Democrats were leading among independent voters by 11 points.
In short, what just a couple of weeks ago seemed like a growing Democrat wave, now looks like a reversal of fortune. So Democrats are desperate to find a way out of their DACA and shutdown quicksand. And that way out appears to be capitulating on The Wall.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) has publicly capitulated:
“It’s not about a wall. We’ll build him a wall. Tell us how high you want it. But free the dreamers”
There also are conflicting reports that Schumer offered Trump $20 billion in wall funding, though that is not confirmed:
Senate Minority Chuck Schumer said Friday that he offered to include funding for President Donald Trump’s wall along the Mexican border as part of a deal to avoid a government shutdown.
During a speech on the Senate floor after the government officially hit a funding lapse, Schumer told members that a deal he offered to Trump would have given the president some funding for the long-promised wall in exchange for the codification of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration program.
The president rejected the offer, according to Schumer.
“In exchange for strong DACA protections, I reluctantly put the border wall on the table for discussion,” Schumer said. “Even that was not enough to entice the president to finish the deal.”
The terms are disputed:
Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” while discussing the government shutdown, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) offer on the border wall was only to “authorize” funding, not “appropriating” the money.
Mulvaney said, “The president is absolutely interested and wants to get DACA fixed but what with you’ve just read really bears a close read which is what the Senate minority leader said was to authorize $20 billion. I know it’s getting real deep down in the weeds. You can authorize left and right but it’s appropriating the money that makes the difference. He wants to authorize the wall to be built but doesn’t want to spend the money to get it built. There was money authorized in 2006 that Mr. Schumer voted for for a wall that still hasn’t been built because that money hasn’t been spent.”
Schumer was moaning and groaning that negotiating with Trump was like negotiating with jello, no fixed positions.
I view it differently, it’s getting Democrats to bid against themselves, by not committing to anything yourself.
Now Democrats have offered The Wall, but it’s not going to be enough to resolve the shutdown, because Trump will not negotiate about DACA while the government is shut.
So Democrats have all but capitulated on The Wall, and they will capitulate further, on chain migration and the immigration lottery, other terms Trump has set as prerequisites.
The big issue is will Democrats get some form of amnesty (pathway to citizenship) in return for this capitulation.
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Before I finish, since later in the article you say that the Dems know they are losing, this sentence appears to have a typo:
“We are now in Day 2 of the government shutdown, and things are now moving favorably for the Democrats, and they know it.”
Trump is amazing. That Gutierrez is now saying build the wall… what a turn.
I actually know some dreamers, and they all support border enforcement/immigration reform for amnesty.
🙂 LOL! Prez T is twisting Cheesey Schemer into a babbling pretzel cartoon character.
Cheesey doesn’t know if he’s coming or going and his frustration has become audible. 🙂
Dreamers — illegal aliens that came here voluntarily as adults?
The path to citizenship should never run through an illegal act.
Dreamers aren’t people who entered the U.S. illegally as adults. They are those that entered the U.S. illegally as children… that means by the illegal act of their parents or someone else. Children lack capacity and are not at fault.
Trump may get some of these people voting Republican if he passes DACA, while also getting the Wall and immigration reform that strengthens the border.
Trump is brilliant.
While the DACA registrants may get a pass on illegally ENTERING the country, if they remained here after they became adults, then that is an entirely different violation of law.
That doesn’t change the fact that they are living in the United States through no fault of their own. If they don’t speak Spanish, Vietnamese, or whatever, they’re supposed to just self deport?
Of course it matters. If a person is invited into a house that an acquaintance says is his he can claim ignorance [lack of intent] if it turns out to belong to someone else who did not give the acquaintance permission to be there. However, once he KNOWS that he is not supposed to be in the house, THEN he can no longer claim a lack of intent to violate the law. See how that works? The same is true with adult DACA registrants. They have already admitted that they KNOW they are in the country illegally because they SIGNED UP FOR DACA.
So they only remained illegally if adults or if actual children they should return to country of origin with nearest parent or guardian. Yesterday.
Build the wall. No amnesty for anyone.
Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. They’ve grown up in America, live and work in America. Most Americans support amnesty for the dreamers. This is why Trump supports funding for the wall and immigration reform, in exchange for amnesty. DACA is happening in some form.
“So Democrats have all but capitulated on The Wall, and they will capitulate further, on chain migration and the immigration lottery, other terms Trump has set as prerequisites.”
I have been reading these ‘prerequisites’ of the President for some time now. I’m baffled why the likes of Mitch “Cecil the Turtle” McConnell would tell the MSM they don’t know the President’s demands. Gutierrez s*cks!
It is utterly galling that Democrats are putting illegal aliens ahead of American citizens…this absolutely has to be rammed down the media’s throat because the media are also putting illegal aliens ahead of Americans (as they would given they are nothing more than the Democrat party propaganda peddlers).
Build the wall, end chain migration, fund boarder protection and pass a fucking law like congress and the senate is supposed to pass fucking laws!!
My one big concern is what the democrats and the media will peddle to distract America from the very real damage being done to it by democrats over illegal aliens? What outrage will they manufacture to cover their arses?
The big issue is will Democrats get some form of amnesty (pathway to citizenship) in return for this capitulation.
Who’s talking about amnesty? The President’s not. Schumer’s not— “codification of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration program” is not how you spell “amnesty”. Schumer may finally be realizing he’s not going to get any such freebie from Trump. So the best he can do is keep these illegals in the country, and hope that the D’rats can force some kind of voting rights from some future administration.
Schumer’s cookies are in a vise. This is a good time for the President to give the vise another turn or two.
The president rejected the offer, according to Schumer.
Yes, I’d say the President knows all about the Art of the Deal. He probably knows all about vises, too.
Here’s the most important thing about negotiation that Trump knows, and that Schumer (and Ryan and McConnell) apparently do not – the side that holds the power doesn’t need to talk, and doesn’t need to make proposals. The winning side just needs the nerve to sit and wait while the losing side keeps increasing their offer. The Dem’s are playing a losing hand, and they know it.
And the closer they get to capitulation, the louder they will howl that Trump isn’t engaged, that Trump won’t negotiate. It’s what the losing side always does. Trump just needs to wait until they give him what he asked for at the outset – and if that takes a week, or a month, or whatever, so what?
If you’ve ever watched two dogs fight, you know that the one doing all the howling, yelping, and whining is the loser. The Big Dog in the fight has always got a lot better things to do than make a lot of noise.
I have seen various arguments put forward that the wall is merely the physical manifestation of the intent to enforce the border (Hugh Hewitt’s language) and as such is not in and of itself so important. I disagree. A physical barrier is important because it is PERMANENT. We all saw Obama whisk away border enforcement with a wave of his executive authority and anything impermanent like increased manning and high-tech monitoring will fall to the same approach the next time the Democrats hold power. Physically tearing down a border wall would be a bit more obvious!
But a wall without enforcement doesn’t keep anyone out.
At least even Trump has now admitted that no physical wall is going into places where it is geographically impossible to build, like Big Bend and the upper Rio Grande canyon.
Only about 700 – 800 miles of actual wall needs to be built.
I’ve always interpreted President Trump’s wall metaphorically. Sure, it would have a physical manifestation in most places and a strong enforcement and legal effort to it. Like Prof Jacobson is suggesting, it’s a statement of us taking our sovereignty seriously.
It’s all a part of taking Trump seriously, but not literally.
It keeps out a lot more than NO wall with no enforcement.
#StableGenius
NO! If the CR is not approved Monday morning, terminate all furloughed Obama holdovers in the afternoon, step up the sanctuary city sweeps by ICE, instruct DOJ to gear up for 1st week in March so that warrants for detention/arrest for the first wave of DACA illegal immigrant deportations can begin.
After the CR is approved and govt. recovers and gets back to business the issue of DACA illegals can then begin. It should at the most grant work permits and provide no path to citizenship. DACA illegals can apply and get at the end of the line of the lawful US immigration process. Any DACA bill should be clearly defined as having no amnesty component, no chain migration, no anchor babies and DACA illegals must meet the new RAISE standards(points system) any that cannot should be deported. As more than 72% of DACA illegals are dependent of government services and therefore cannot meet the RAISE standards this brings the pool of illegals down that needs to be heavily vetted.
Dreamers should be redefined as those of us still out there that believe rule of law should apply to everyone.
Careful, isn’t this exactly how the Dems sucker-punched Reagan?
Perhaps PDJT should start pulling things off the table. “That was last week; this is this week’s offering. It won’t be available next week.”
Hell, no, everyone cheered when Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers, except the alt-left and media who cried endlessly over it.
Anyway, as much as I love Paul’s suggestion, I’m putting my faith in President Trump’s skills and instincts. I don’t think anyone could’ve gotten us this far in a single year, no pundit from National Review, not member of the ‘conservative’ House Freedom Caucus, not even Ted Cruz, I hate to admit.
“No anchor babies” can’t be done. Babies born here are automatically citizens. The most you can do is say the parents become ineligible for family reunification visas.
No, we will see that premise tested in court.
There’s nothing to test. It’s right there in the constitution, firmly established law, and no judge is ever going to entertain a challenge.
That part of the constitution was written for when our nation was first created. I believe an amendment is in order. Or perhaps that relevant clause in the constitution could be ‘re-interpreted’ the way the alt left reinterprets the rest of the cosntitution. Funny how they’re always trashing our constitution, unless they find something, real or imagined, that supports their cause, then just like that, it’s the greatest document ever!
replying to rdmdawg – the relevant part of the Constitution is the opening line of the 14th amendment, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
You can see that the only point of dispute is what the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction of” means. Ever since Wong Kim Ark (1898) our courts have taken that to mean that if you can be arrested by the local or federal police for any reason, then you’re “subject to the jurisdiction of”. If you cannot be arrested, like Foreign Ambassadors cannot be, or (at the time) native americans who were only subject to their own tribal police as long as they were on the res, then you were not.
You may wish it would be interpreted differently, but bluntly put, unless you can get a constitutional amendment passed changing that language, anyone born on US soil from any parentage is going to be considered a US citizen.
Passing a constitutional amendment requires broad bipartisan support. Not going to happen.
“Passing a constitutional amendment requires broad bipartisan support. Not going to happen.”
Well yes, of course. But in arguing this issue endlessly I’ve realized it’s easier to smile and say “well you go and pass your constitutional amendment then” than it is to convince them that the situation is what it is, and is never going to change. People feel better when you give them some hope, even if its totally false.
So, if a Mexican citizen is behaving in a manner which necessitates their being arrested, they lose their Mexican citizenship? I doubt that. So, if Mexican citizens have a baby in the United States of America, isn’t that baby a Mexican citizen?
The amendment was designed to give citizenship to freed slaves, who had no country. While that aforementioned baby might have dual citizenship, could we not ask that a choice be made between the 18th and 19th years of age? However, the said parents of that child are still in the country illegally, and should be subject to deportation. Don’t want to split the family? The child can go with them and come back at 18.
This is not altogether bad. France has children of noncitizens, and grandchildren of noncitizens, who are not citizens, but France is the only country they know, and shipping them out isn’t going to happen. At least our anchor babies are citizens. We need to respect that.
Mexican citizenship is entirely a matter for Mexican law, which is not the same as US law. What Mexican law says about Mexican citizenship is entirely irrelevant to any question about US citizenship. If Mexican citizens have a baby in the United States of America, the baby may or may not be a Mexican citizen, but either way it is a US citizen because the US constitution says so.
So no, we cannot ask it to make a choice, ever; its US citizenship is not a privilege we are granting it, but its constitutional right, exactly like our own. The constitution sees no difference between this child and any other American.
It is completely irrelevant what you think the 14th amendment was “designed” to do. All that matters is what it actually does. Robert Bork was wrong, and his theories have not found a place in US jurisprudence.
“Designed for ” and “intention” are sort of similar, and yes, the intention of the framers of legislation is often considered in court cases. But you know that.
Their citizenship can be made conditional upon their decision on their 18th birthday. We are only asking them to choose the United States or the country of their parents.
Due to the interpretation of this amendment you trumpet, we have wealthy Chinese coming to this country for the sole purpose of having a child, to gain American citizenship. This is not right.
Even for those willing to concede some form of DACA action, negotiation under the condition of government shutdown would be foolish — and President Trump is no fool.
DACA recipients must be required to meet continuing criteria to remain in the limbo that any such legislation will create, and failure to do so, or adverse activities should lead to immediate and irreversible revocation of their status (which means that all of them must remain citizens of their country of origin).
DACA recipients should ultimately have a path to citizenship, or they will remain second-class non-citizens — but the path should be challenging, require assimilation and an in-depth knowledge of American history — which means they would make better citizens than most of the snowflakes.
What’s wrong with them remaining permanent aliens, with the right of residence so long as they obey the law? Their children will be citizens anyway.
Well, some of them have served in the armed forces. Lots of Americans, myself included, haven’t even done that.
Only a few of the DACA illegals have served in the military. The number being bounced around is 600. So lots and lots of DACA illegals have not served in the military. On top of that more than 72% of the DACA illegals are dependent on govt. assistance.
Dreamers can bring in family members…. worst case scenario …. 72 million total immigration. So 1/4 of population of US could be based on illegal immigration and its fallout. Hugo and Fidel would be smiling.. if there are smiles allowed in Hell.
If they have, it was through fraud or special exception, I know for a fact, my Canadian born stepson had to provide a GC to join the military. And the following is directly from the recruitment website.
Proof of citizenship (if you were not born in the United States)
Social Security card
Valid driver’s license or current state identification card
A direct-deposit form from your checking account (signed by a bank official)
Original or certified copies of your marriage certificate, divorce decree or separation order (if applicable)
Original or certified copies of birth certificates of children under 18; affidavit of support from parents; court documents and direct-deposit forms if ordered to pay spousal and/or child support (if applicable)
If you are married to a service member in the military, you need to have the name, Social Security number and military address of your spouse
Copies of your lease agreement or rental contract for any dependents residing outside of government quarters (if applicable)
Original or certified ROTC documentation (if applicable)
Original college transcripts; GED or high school diploma
People with special skills that the military needs can have the citizenship requirement waived. Several hundred DACA registrants have been recruited in this way.
Chain conception…. it takes the Dems longer to gain irreversible control… but they will.
Yes if we let them remain here their children will be citizens. They. Have. To. Go. Back. Build the Wall.
I’d offer the “dreamers” two paths to citizenship. First, return to their country of origin. Or second, serve three years of active duty in the military and receive an honorable discharge.
Of course, the wall, an end to chain migration and the lottery, and a very narrow definition of “dreamer” need to be part of the deal.
I’d offer the “dreamers” two paths to citizenship. First, return to their country of origin. Or second, serve three years of active duty in the military and receive an honorable discharge.
Of course, the wall, an end to chain migration and the lottery, and a very narrow definition of “dreamer” need to be part of the deal.
Go find and read the caveats for building the wall that are in the “Gang of Six” bill, which is what Schumer surely will want included. Those alone would preclude the wall ever being built.
Make the “Dreamers” build the wall! http://www.trevorloudon.com/2018/01/a-win-win-make-dreamers-build-that-wall/
Build the wall and deport every so-called DREAMer, even the ones who have been given green cards and citizenship. Send a message to foreigners—you do not decide who enters the United States, the American people do.
Finally, someone that gets it.
You cannot deport citizens. Ever. And once someone has legally obtained citizenship you cannot ever take it away.
Emigration reform over there. Protect American civil rights over here. Stop placing sons and daughters, “our Posterity”, of American citizens, “the People”, second.
What should happen: all DREAMERS deported, or self-deported to begin the process of legal immigration.
Employment of any illegal made a crime. NO benefits to any illegal alien using ANY Federal money.
What will happen: Der Donald will sign an amnesty for DREAMERS.
There will be “Donald’s Vapor Wall”. Mexico will pay no part of it. (Remember the “remittances” bullshit? I still laugh at that one!)
There will be some progress at ending chain migration and the lottery.
There will continue to be a YUGE number of people here illegally who come from every OTHER place than south of the border.