Senate Opens Debate on Bill to Halt Surge of Migrants

New York Times: 

By Ashley Parker

July 30, 2014

Senate Opens Debate on Bill to Halt Surge of Migrants 

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats opened debate Wednesday on an emergency measure to help stem the flood of young migrants from Central America, though they still face two uphill votes — another procedural, and one of final passage — before they can head home for the five-week August recess having passed legislation to address the crisis at the southern border.

The first procedural measure passed 63 to 33, with 11 Republicans joining their Democratic counterparts in favor of opening debate, and two Democrats locked in competitive 2014 races — Senators Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana — opposing it.

The legislation, however, is unlikely to pass the Senate before the coming break, with many of the Republicans who voted to advance the bill threatening to ultimately vote against it if they are not allowed to offer amendments for additional changes.

The Republican-controlled House is also struggling to muster the votes to pass its own border legislation.

In a sign of the resistance Speaker John A. Boehner and his team are facing, the leadership is now planning to allow two votes on Thursday — one on the emergency funding bill itself, and, only if it passes, another to prevent President Obama from offering protected status to additional immigrants who came here illegally as children, under a program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

And even if both chambers do manage to push through their bills, the two sides are not expected to reach a compromise before the August recess.

The Democratic proposal, which also includes money to combat wildfires in Western states and for Israel’s missile defense system known as Iron Dome, would allocate $2.7 billion toward what both President Obama and congressional lawmakers have called an urgent humanitarian crisis.

The amount falls short of the $3.7 billion in emergency funds the president originally requested, but it is far more than the $659 million House Republicans are proposing in their alternative.

The crucial part of the House plan would change a 2008 law intended to combat human trafficking, to make it easier to more quickly return the Central American migrant children to their home countries.

On Wednesday, the White House issued a veto threat against the House legislation, saying the bill would “undercut due process for vulnerable children, which could result in their removal to life-threatening situations in foreign countries.”

The Senate Democratic plan does not make any changes to the 2008 law, with Democrats in both the House and the Senate almost unanimously opposed to any change to it, saying that could hurt the young migrants fleeing violence in their home countries.

Mr. Boehner is facing an assault on multiple fronts in his attempt to hold his fragile coalition together. Some Senate Democrats are threatening to use any border bill the House sends them as a vehicle to enter into House-Senate negotiations over the broader bipartisan immigration bill that passed the Senate in June 2013, which includes a path to citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants already in the country.

Even though the Senate Democrats almost certainly do not have the votes to execute such a maneuver, the mere suggestion could rattle House Republicans. “We have a president that’s already said that he’s going to go out and make the problem even worse by granting amnesty to even more people, unlawfully,” said Representative John Fleming, Republican of Louisiana.

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, met Wednesday evening with as many as two-dozen House Republicans to discuss the matter. Mr. Cruz has made no secret of his opposition to the House bill, which does not include any changes to the president’s 2012 executive action allowing young immigrants brought to the country as children — known as “Dreamers” — to remain here without threat of deportation, under the deferred action program.

If Mr. Cruz is able to persuade enough House Republicans not to support their own bill without further changes, the House could fail to pass any legislation before the break.

“People were not happy with the bill that the House leadership has,” said Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota. “There wasn’t any support in the room.”

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