Once again, as in recent years, immigrants illegally crossing the Southwest border are becoming front-page news. And it’s not just Fox News and other right-wing media covering the disaster. MSNBC, CNN, and the three major networks are reporting from the region, too.
When is it going to end?
Frankly, there is no end game. Our perpetually polarized political climate in Washington, D.C., makes finding a solution impossible. The American people are fed up and outraged, as they should be. There’s plenty of blame to go around, but it’s usually the president of the United States at the time who will bear the brunt of that blame.
President Joe Biden came into office hoping to present a more humane approach to the immigration issue. Many folks were horrified at the treatment of immigrants during the Trump administration, especially the scenes of crying children taken from their families. He’s tried to make the situation less horrific, at least. However, the problem is too complex and dire to go at it on a sort of piecemeal basis. Nibbling around the edges is not going to cut it. It hasn’t worked.
The complex problem can only be solved with a comprehensive plan. And, unfortunately, we’re not seeing anything of the sort at this time. 2024 is an election year, and let’s face it, nothing will get done between now and then.
It’s the sad state of affairs we’re now increasingly used to in D.C. Democrats sound the alarm and plead for a comprehensive plan. Republicans yell and scream that Democrats want an open border. What is their solution besides building a 2,000-mile wall and deporting everybody?
And why should they? It’s become such a political anvil they can use against Democrats that they have no incentive to come together and find a way to fix the problem. Heading to the border with Fox News is more politically palatable than sitting in a room with Democrats trying to hammer out a plan.
It did not have to be this way.
In 2013, we were very close to fixing our broken immigration policy. S. 744, The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, passed the Senate by a 68-32 vote. That’s right, several Republicans voted with Democrats. We commonly call that a bipartisan bill. It rarely happens these days, but the environment was slightly less toxic back then.
The legislation was written by the “Gang of Eight,” a bipartisan group consisting of Senators Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Robert Menendez, and Michael Bennet for the Democrats, and John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Marco Rubio, and Jeff Flake, for the Republicans. Other than McCain, who has since passed away, and Flake, who retired, the others are still serving.
Schumer introduced The bill in the Senate on April 16, 2013. After passing the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 13-5 vote, the bill moved to the Senate floor on June 7, 2013, for debate. The bill finally passed on June 27, 2013, after the usual back and forth between amendments offered and subsequent filibusters.
Think about that for a moment. In a little over two months, the Senate worked together to produce a bill that addressed all aspects of the immigration process, from border and enforcement issues to legal immigration reforms. Can you fathom anything like that happening today?
It’s tragic because the bill, while not perfect, would have addressed many of the problems we’re seeing today, especially in border enforcement. Republicans, then and now, always say that the border is open. S. 744 addressed the issue head-on.
The bill created a fund with $46.3 billion in initial funding to implement the Act. It included investments in the following: at least 38,405 full-time Border Patrol agents along the southern border; a mandated electronic exit system at all ports where Customs Border Protection agents are deployed; constructing at least 700 miles of fencing, including double fencing; increasing mobile surveillance; deploying aircraft and radio communications; hiring additional prosecutors, judges, and staff; and increasing prosecutions of illegal border crossings.
There’s more, much more. And you can find a more comprehensive summary here. There was not an area of immigration policy that S. 744 didn’t address. And if the bill were brought to the House for consideration, it would have passed. Yes, they may have changed some things, but there were plenty of moderate Republicans who would have joined Democrats in passing it.
Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. John Boehner, who was Speaker then, refused to bring it to the House for a vote. Why? Because, as is the case today, he was hijacked by the crazies, much like what we see happening to Speaker Kevin McCarthy as we speak. Back then, it was the Tea Party. Today, it’s the so-called Freedom Caucus.
You know the Freedom Caucus: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar, and the other malcontents, who are hell-bent on sabotaging anything that would make life better for the American people or give any victory to Joe Biden. Blaming Biden is so much easier.
What had the Tea Party up in arms with S. 744? Part of the comprehensive nature of the bill dealt with the possibility of legalized status for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the country at the time. It was a red line for them then. And it indeed is a redline now.
In other words, their solution to the millions of undocumented immigrants is to deport them all. Send them all back where they came from and get to the back of the line. There you go. Let’s deport everyone here illegally and pick up the pieces when the economy goes to hell. Oh, and blame Democrats when that happens, of course.
I hope that Joe Biden will remind voters in next year’s election that we were close, so very close, to potentially solving what has become an immensely broken immigration system in 2013. He was the Vice-President at the time. Biden knew what a game-changer it could have been. And why he isn’t saying it out loud more often is perplexing. Perhaps it goes to the age-old axiom that Democrats suck at messaging. They do, unfortunately.
The fact is, we had a chance. Would S. 744 have solved every issue related to immigration? Probably not. But if you read the bill and see what was all in it, you’d be hard-pressed to come to any other conclusion that it would have helped immensely.
In my view, Democrats should point to that bill and use it as a starting point. Tell Republicans they’re open to tweaking it, reflecting the current situation rather than what it was ten years ago.
If only Republicans had the intestinal fortitude to make it happen. I’d say it repeatedly until the election if I’m Joe Biden. Democrats are always losing the argument on immigration and constantly playing defense. Why not go on offense and let them explain why they won’t come to the table?
The only way we can fix immigration is for the two parties to unite and make it happen. That means both sides will have to compromise. I’m old enough to remember when compromise was considered a good thing. It’s not too late. Or is it?
On The Fence Voters 
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