With holiday recess closing in, the clock is running out for compromise legislation
WASHINGTON — House Republicans moved to kick the migrant crisis created by President Donald Trump back to the White House on Tuesday by scheduling a vote for a broad immigration bill that is unlikely to pass before Congress goes on break, and almost certainly would be a nonstarter in the Senate if it does.
After failing to pass a conservative immigration overhaul last week, deeply divided House Republicans faced similar low odds for success as they planned a second vote Wednesday on legislation that would fund a border wall and curb legal immigration programs, as well as provide legal status for so-called Dreamers and keep families together in detention.
Congress is set to recess on Thursday for an extended July 4 holiday, so the focus on the so-called compromise bill is likely to run out the clock before lawmakers can consider a much more limited proposal that would seek to fix only the family separations crisis.
The impasse will keep the emotionally charged controversy in the public eye as lawmakers return to their districts five months before the midterm elections amid growing concerns that the Trump administration has been unable to fully account for more than 2,000 migrant children who were detained separately from their parents since May.
The controversy widened Tuesday as 17 states sued the Trump administration for what they alleged was "cruel and unlawful" separation of migrant families.
The suit, filed in federal court in Seattle, objects to the policy of refusing entry to asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. It also says Trump's executive order on June 20 to stop the family separations was "illusory."
The lawsuit claims Trump's order is riddled with caveats and fails to reunite parents and children who already were separated.
It accuses the administration of denying the parents and children due process under the law and of being arbitrary in applying its policy. It also accuses the administration of denying the immigrants, many of whom are fleeing gang violence in Central America, their right to seek asylum under U.S. and international law.
The states joined in the lawsuit are California, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. All have Democratic attorneys general.
Trump has blamed Democrats for the stalemate in Congress, but he has given wildly mixed signals about what he wants from Republicans there.
The president initially said he opposed the compromise bill, then told Republican lawmakers he was 1,000 percent for immigration legislation, and then said Republicans "should stop wasting their time" by trying to pass a bill before the November elections.
The latest proposed bill would provide $25 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, a Trump priority, and would make steep cuts to legal immigration programs. It also would provide legal status to so-called Dreamers who were brought to the country illegally as children years ago and allow children to be held in detention along with their parents.
A vote on the bill, which was negotiated between conservative and moderate Republicans, was delayed twice last week. Changes to make it more palatable to Republicans were still being discussed Tuesday, including the idea of requiring employers to check the legal status of their employees.
"Nothing good can come from further debate. We've burned up about seven weeks in a debate about something we're not going to get moved at all," an opponent of the bill, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said. He called for passage instead of what he called "a small, skinny bill" aimed only at family separations.
House Republican leaders acknowledge they still don't have the 218 votes needed to pass the compromise bill despite holding 235 seats in the chamber.
Conservatives sought to prevent Dreamers who eventually become citizens from sponsoring their parents for citizenship. Moderate members of the caucus pushed back, while GOP leaders blamed Democrats for not supporting their bill.
"Why doesn't a few Democrats move over? If they are honest about wanting to secure the border, here is the opportunity," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Monday on Fox News.
Few Democrats are inclined to help rescue Trump from a political storm that the administration created by detaining children separately from their parents as part of a new "zero tolerance" policy of prosecuting all adults who cross the border illegally. Democrats had no role in crafting the bill. Moreover, Democrats had no role in crafting the current bill.
"It's just a bad bill. It has nothing to do with even being locked out of the process, it's just a bad bill," said Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif.
At his weekly news conference Tuesday, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., wouldn't discuss proposals for a narrower bill targeting only the family separations. A Senate proposal would add 225 immigration judges and expedite court proceedings for families.
Ryan said he wants to "do as well as we possibly can" in Wednesday's vote, adding: "If that doesn't succeed, then we'll cross that bridge."
"But the last thing I want to do is undercut a vote on what is a great consensus bill that we're bringing to the floor Wednesday," he said.
Last week, amid a public outcry over wrenching images of children being taken from their parents and held behind chain-link fences, Trump signed an executive order to keep families together in detention. But that shift could be short-lived.
Under a 21-year-old court settlement known as the Flores agreement, the federal government agreed to hold immigrant minors no longer than 20 days. Immigration cases typically take much longer to process in courts.
On Monday, Border Patrol officials announced they had stopped handing over immigrant parents for prosecution because, they said, they were running out of beds to house migrant families. The reversal means migrant families, in theory, will be released pending their court dates.
The administration has already asked a federal judge to modify the Flores settlement and allow families to be held together in unlicensed facilities while their immigration cases are considered. The Obama administration made a similar request in 2015, but a judge refused.
There has been some discussion on Capitol Hill of legislation just to address the Flores settlement in case Trump's executive order is halted by the courts. But specific language hasn't been proposed and there's little time for either the House or the Senate to pass anything before the holiday recess.
Democrats say they're unlikely to support even a targeted fix if it looks like the language in the compromise bill.
"I don't think Democrats would support indefinitely incarcerating children," Aguilar said.