Despite the fact that the chances of success are practically zero, the Democratic majority in the Senate decided to revive the bipartisan immigration reform bill that was blocked by Republicans this year.
Let us remember that the plan, negotiated by a handful of Democrats and Republicans, would have allowed the president of the United States for the first time to automatically close the border in the face of a wave of migrants.
That is to say, the border with Mexico could be closed for “emergency” reasons when the number of attempted crossings by undocumented immigrants exceeds 5,000 migrants on average in a period of 5 days.
For the first time, Democrats also accepted some of the toughest immigration proposals from Republicans to toughen the requirements for granting asylum, as well as to strengthen immigration detention operations, institute “expedited” deportations and restrict the process of humanitarian parole.
The parole process has been instrumental in helping to stabilize some of the flows of migrants at the border, since it has allowed the sponsored entry of hundreds of thousands of migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti in recent years.
But that proposal was dynamited by none other than Donald Trump, who personally asked legislators to reject it, in order to deny a political and legislative victory to President Joe Biden and the Democrats in the election year.
It didn’t matter that Democrats made concessions that were unthinkable just a few months ago. And that it was the first bipartisan initiative in years. The only thing that mattered to Mr. Trump was his personal ambition.
Of course, not everything was a stick against the undocumented; the Democrats managed to sneak in a clause to speed up the granting of the asylum process, so that a growing number of cases could be adjudicated in an average of six months.
The question is: why do Democrats decide to resurrect a bill that has practically zero chance of passing?
The answer is very simple. Democrats want to embarrass Republicans and show that they are the ones who oppose immigration reform.
Unfortunately, we continue to witness the perverse political games in Washington, where it is more important to pretend than to legislate, to pretend that we are seeking to solve problems, instead of solving them.
In a few months voters will have the opportunity to send a strong message to the two predominant parties in the United States. Its representatives and senators were elected to deal with major national problems, not to play absurd political games.
