Senate Dems Move To Support President On Immigration

(This caricature of President Obama is by DonkeyHotey.)

Since the congressional Republicans have blocked all efforts to reform our broken immigration system, President Obama issued a couple of executive orders to fix what he could. In 2012, he stopped the deportation of "Dreamers (those brought to the U.S. when very young and raised in this country). Then last year he issued a second executive order. That order stopped the deportation of family members of those "Dreamers" -- a move that stopped the hard-hearted policy of splitting up immigrant families.

Congressional Republicans were incensed by the president's actions -- partially because they automatically oppose everything the president does, and partially to appease their xenophobic teabagger base. They swore to overturn the president's executive orders.

In an effort to do that, they made a stupendous blunder. When the 2015 budget was passed by Congress, the Republicans left the funding of the Department of Homeland Security out of that budget. Then the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a separate funding bill for that department, and attached two provisions to it -- provisions that would overturn the president's 2012 and 2014 executive orders on immigration.

They assumed that Senate Democrats (and the president) would be forced to accept the bill to keep funds flowing to Homeland Security. The funding for that department is currently being done by a continuing resolution which ends on the last day of this month. They didn't think the Democrats had the backbone to block funding for Homeland Security, and would give in -- eliminating both executive orders.

They were wrong! When that onerous bill reached the Senate, Democrats immediately filibustered it -- and when Majority Leader McConnell tried to invoke cloture on that filibuster, he failed. He was only able to get 51 votes (9 votes short of the 60 needed to override the filibuster). The Senate Democrats are demanding a clean funding bill -- a bill without the two "poison pill" provisions to overturn the president's executive orders.

Of course, the Republicans are wailing and whining -- but they don't have a leg to stand on. The Democrats are simply using a parliamentary procedure the Republicans have used for several years to block everything the president tried to get through Congress. If it was good for the GOP, then it is equally good for the Democrats.

This puts the Republicans between a rock and a hard place. They either remove the offending provisions, or watch funding for one of their favorite departments end -- and their teabagger base is not going to like either option. If the funding stops, they'll try to blame it on the Democrats -- but that's not going to work. The public knows who created this mess, and actually support stopping those deportations.

Some Republicans are proposing a "compromise" -- ending the 2014 executive order and allowing the 2012 order to stand. But Democrats have already said that is not acceptable -- they will only stop the filibuster for a clean funding bill.

The Republicans have blundered big-time with this ridiculous move, and it'll be interesting to see how they try to extricate themselves from the mess they created. Personally, I think they'll have to back down and pass a clean funding bill.