Sen. Thom Tillis wants you to know that he’s very “reasonable.” That’s the word the North Carolina Republican used with reporters this week while describing immigration reforms that the GOP is demanding from Senate Democrats in exchange for supporting the billions in Ukraine aid that President Biden wants.

But the demands from Tillis and his fellow Republican leading the talks, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, are not reasonable at all — they’re following Donald Trump’s playbook. Under the guise of seeking more “border security,” they’re insisting on provisions that would reduce legal immigration in numerous ways that could even undermine the goal of securing the border.

    • spaceghotiOPEnglish
      8•1 year ago

      It’s pure posing, trying to pin the blame on Democrats for not accomplishing the impossible. The article lays out how they’re not even trying to pretend they’re negotiating in good faith. FTA:

      In another absurdity, Republicans have said publicly that Democrats must agree to reduce illegal border crossings by more than 50 percent. But that’s a fuzzy demand: It’s unclear how policy changes could dramatically slash the number who attempt to enter and simply get intercepted by law enforcement. When Democratic staffers sought clarification on this point, the sources say, they got nothing back.

      Also:

      What’s really bizarre about the impasse is that Republicans should support much of what’s in Biden’s initial request for border security funding. After all, it would also fund expedited asylum processing, which could reduce the window for migrants to exploit the system and prompt faster removals for those who don’t qualify. Aren’t those things Republicans want?

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    3•1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Sen. Thom Tillis wants you to know that he’s very “reasonable.” That’s the word the North Carolina Republican used with reporters this week while describing immigration reforms that the GOP is demanding from Senate Democrats in exchange for supporting the billions in Ukraine aid that President Biden wants.

    According to Democratic sources familiar with the negotiations, Republican demands began to shift soon after the New York Times reported that in a second Trump term, he would launch mass removals of millions of undocumented immigrants, gut asylum seeking almost entirely, and dramatically expand migrant detention in “giant camps.”

    According to the Democratic sources, Republicans are demanding that presidential parole authority be scaled back so it can only be applied on an individual case-by-case basis, not to large groups from a single nationality.

    “Canceling parole would significantly heighten the pressures on the border and the numbers of migrant crossings,” said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.

    Trump’s loud broadcasting of plans for an extraordinarily cruel immigration crackdown if he is elected president again appears to be rendering Republicans even less open to compromise without him being in the room.

    Hence, their slapdash demand for cuts to legal immigration and other radical measures, which seems to cast about for some way to satiate the former president’s taste for draconian nativist savagery.

    The original article contains 808 words, the summary contains 222 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!