Dealing From Weakness: GOP Aligns With Trump Amnesty Plan
01/30/2018
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Going into the State of the Union, the Republican Party is aligning itself with President Trump's amnesty plan for DACA. And thus far, there has been no mention of a tax on remittances.
Though rank-and-file House Republicans and conservative groups have blasted the White House plan as “amnesty” and a violation of Trump’s campaign promises, the GOP leaders attending the meeting of the seconds-in-command from each party in each chamber (hence, the “Number Twos”) had nothing but praise for the proposal.

“I feel like the president has been extraordinarily generous, surprisingly so, in terms of the relief offered to the DACA recipients,” Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) told reporters, referring to the plan’s pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. “It just seems to me that it would be very disappointing to them, and to all of us, for them to fail to take advantage of this opportunity to provide permanent relief for them, while we do some other important things that need to be done, like secure the border, like plow more green cards back into the waiting list rather than just keep going on with collateral family-based immigration.”

Though a key provision in the deal cut in the Senate to end the government shutdown was a promise from GOP leaders to hold a vote on an immigration deal whether President Trump supports it or not, Republicans now say that they are “by definition”  working off the President’s framework.

“I know the Democrats would like to take the DACA piece and forget the rest, but we’re not going to do that,” Cornyn said. “The White House says there are four pillars, and I think we have to come up with a solution that addresses all four.”

Cornyn’s counterpart in the House, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), was more tight-lipped exiting the meeting, only telling reporters: “The president laid out a very good start.”

[GOP leaders bear-hug the Trump immigration plan as negotiations sputterby Alice Ollstein, Talking Points Memo, January 30, 2018]

Of course, the leftist propaganda against it is more hysterical than ever. If the GOP thinks the Democrats are actually interested in a compromise, they are fooling themselves. Donald Trump would get no more resistance if he simply stepped up to the podium tonight and declared he was deporting all illegals and enforcing immigration law.

Why doesn't he just do that, if only to strengthen his negotiating position? Dealing from weakness gets you crushed.

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