President Donald Trump is considering introducing legislation to provide a pathway to legal status, but not immediately to citizenship, for illegal immigrants in the United States, CNN reported on Tuesday, citing a senior White House official.
Either a senior White House official is about to get fired, or else I will have to revise my odds (currently near zero) that a Republican Congress would ever impeach Trump. Immigration always blows up the GOP. It completely detonated the primary when Trump ran deep into reckless hawk territory, and the long term consequences for the GOP and for American business could well be catastrophic. Running all the way across the grid into amnesty territory is lunatic behavior. Republicans cannot possibly pass an immigration bill, full stop. The base goes absolutely feral at the idea of amnesty. Remember, the GOP coalition is basically a pact to subdue minorities and women in exchange for tax cuts. But the Chamber o’ Commerce crowd gets just as agitated when ICE doorkickers start rounding up their best labor. Tyson does not want to charge twice as much for packaged chicken thighs any more than you want to pay it.
Dubya and Marco Rubio both spent a lot of capital on compromise bills with amnesty provisions. The base ate them both alive. If Trump does try this clever tack to the immigration center, I have little doubt it will cost him massively with the base, embolden many Republicans to start standing up to him, and benefit himself and the GOP not one iota.
Roger Moore
The most likely answer is that this is a trial balloon that will be decried as fake news the moment they see how the base reacts.
Cain
Looks like the various industries are putting the screws. I’m not sure if they can do it though. It is very unlikely that anything immigration related that doesn’t have a ‘kick em all out’ to it is going to pass the House. Gerrymandering also means that nobody gives a shit about compromising even within their party. Watching Ryan squirm will be good times I think.
Even better, have Democrats declare victory and take a victory lap. That should send Trump and his supporters into a spin…
Yarrow
St. Reagan signed the amnesty bill into law and Trump wants to be the next Reagan, so….
Mnemosyne
Somebody else posted this classic Chris Rock bit yesterday because, as usual, Rock is 100 percent right: once white conservatives start ranting against “immigrants,” anti-Semitism and racism is coming up next, and that train is never late.
Jay S
@Roger Moore: More likely a Lucy football sucker punch.
Baud
Only Nixon could go to China…
dr. bloor
If we’ve learned anything over the past few years, it should be that “The Base” ALWAYS comes home when it’s time to vote. I’ll believe an immigration bill has consequences for Republicans when they actually start losing elections for lying to and screwing over their constituents.
Baud
@dr. bloor: It’s more the primaries that the Republicans are worried about.
JMG
Senior administration official was Trump himself. So what he said at lunch has of course no relevance to what he’ll say tonight, which could again by completely different when he tweets in response to Morning Joe tomorrow morning.
schrodingers_cat
You are not eligible for naturalization immediately after you get a GC either. The wait is between 3 to 5 years. Spouses and military personnel have to wait for 3 years everyone else has to wait for 5 years.I am sure there is some catch.
cmorenc
My bet is that the proposed “pathway to legal status” will be so strewn with land-mines, punji-traps, and other trick conditions that few could successfully navigate before inadvertently tripping an ICE deportation raid.
David Rickard
If this is real, Congress won’t get a chance to impeach the SCROTUS… Reichsführer Bannon and Obersturmführer Miller will gun him down.
Hunter Gathers
@Baud: Love me some Old Vulcan Proverbs.
Baud
“Legal status” could refer to some sort of indentured servitude.
efgoldman
@schrodingers_cat:
For now, the catch is clearly dark skin and/or a non-christian sounding name.
Anybody know about any Irish or Scandinavians or Germans being held up for two hours or more? Or rounded up and sent home?
XTPD
@Mnemosyne: Soviet-era joke:
Armenian man, on his deathbead: “My children, remember to always protect the Jews.”
Children: “Why, father?”
Father: “Because once they are gone, we will be next.”
? Martin
If I had to guess, Trump is probing for leaks. Give different policy ideas to people around the WH and see which one gets out.
schrodingers_cat
@efgoldman: Well there was the Australian writer and the French Holocaust expert.
Roger Moore
@cmorenc:
Maybe that “pathway” will involve going back to their home country and applying for an immigrant visa. That could be spun as a legal pathway while still being a practical no-go.
PPCLI
@efgoldman: Well, there was that 80 year old (white) Australian children’s book author.
humboldtblue
@Baud:
The money always wins out and you can pick any of a dozen industries — Martin provided an outstanding explanation of the impact to skilled farm labor in Cali a few days ago — and the money men are running scared. It’s not simply about party purity when the money comes into play, it’s about a steady source of labor for jobs they know Americans won’t do both for wage concerns and for the drudgery of much of the work.
I’m with dr. bloor, they will rally to the flag when told to because the Koch brothers will have raised another liberal bogeymen for them to fear and it won’t have a damn thing to do with immigration, or if it does, it will be tied to drugs and crime.
Republican state Senator Tom Berryhill is trying to have it both ways — he knows his base needs immigrant farm labor — so that’s why he wants to amend the state constitution to require California law enforcement to cooperate with the Feds when it comes to ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS CONVICTED OF VIOLENT FELONIES and ensure they get deported and if the re-cross are ineligible for any Fed or state benefits.
That’s the hair-splitting they have to do and they will do it. Watch as similar measures are introduced.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yep, no path to citizenship for generations like in many European countries. The Holy Grail for restrictionistas is getting rid of birthright citizenship.
Oatler.
Get back, it’s gonna blow!
Peale
@schrodingers_cat: Yep. it was of course a major talking point on the Right that Obama was immiedately making assylum seekers citizens and that the “path to citizenship” was just a give away that would immediately make everyone a citizen so that the Democrats would have 30 million new voters. Anything that makes them legal is considered amnesty. Anything that makes legal immigration easier is amnesty as well.
My guess is that this “path to citizenship” is only going to be extended once the Mexicans and muslims and asians are safely deported so that it will only apply to the Irish and the Poles.
PPCLI
I think the pathway the “senior White House official” has in mind is “Miss Universe competitors: You can be a citizen if you become my fourth wife. Or my mistress.”
Mnemosyne
@dr. bloor:
As Baud! said, they’re worried about being primaried from the right, not about the general election. That’s how Eric Cantor got turfed out.
@efgoldman:
There was recenrly a children’s book illustrator from Australia who was detained and questioned for hours. Probably because that’s how Customs makes themselves look “unbiased” to the loons: See, we don’t just harass the blacks and browns, we harass little old white ladies, too! All foreigners are subject to random harassment regardless of their skin color!
SatanicPanic
@? Martin: That sounds like something a clever man would do. Not sure Trump is that man.
Yarrow
@Baud: Yep. No rights. No minimum wage. No worker protections. Can’t vote. But also they don’t have to worry about ICE dragging them away from their kids. Might be a compromise business could live with. The people directly affected can’t vote so they won’t have a say. If businesses don’t have to raise wages or protect workers then it’s all good for them.
Iowa Old Lady
@efgoldman: The Australian children’s writer, Mem Fox, looks pretty fair skinned, and she was held in LAX for a couple of hours. She’s 70 and was on her way to a children’s book conference. CPB has gone insane.
dc
I don’t like that we depend on abusive labor practices and poverty wages for lower prices at the supermarket. There has to be another solution. A system that relies on a vast army of vulnerable and abused workers is not one people of conscience should support.
Florida Frog
@Roger Moore: @efgoldman: wasn’t the elderly Australian author very pale?
schrodingers_cat
Someone had a posted a story this morning saying that T likes people to look the part, he calls it central casting. Three people don’t fall into that category
T himself
and B and M.
I guess you don’t have to be central casting if you are a white supremacist.
Frank Wilhoit
Everything like this is a trial balloon — whether it takes the grammatical form of “we might…” or “we might not…”. Consider the depth of Mr. Trump’s emotional block against asking “should I…?” This is how he does it instead.
With respect to this particular trial balloon, doubtless many, many people are making the same points that you have made to Mr. Trump and to his handlers — each in their own self-serving frame, of course, but with plenty of overlap.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
The French Holocaust expert is Jewish, so he’s already near the top of the list of “undesirables.”
trollhattan
Will speculate Trump’s Programma del Amnesty Latino will be restricted to six countries–the ones with the “caliente Latinas” and not home fo the bad hombres. “Brazil, you’re in. Very hot ladies down there. Chili, in. Spain, totally in. Argentina, fantastic steaks, really folks, you should try them. You’re in….”
etc.
Timurid
@schrodingers_cat:
And that’s going to have implications far beyond immigration. The endgame here is not stopping Mexican anchor babies. It’s forcing everyone born here.. first generation or tenth… to ‘earn’ citizenship and voting rights by attaining a certain level of wealth/income.
nominus
@cmorenc: Agreed. Either it will definitely involve a long period of spotless service, a late parking ticket immediately disqualifies, or the fine print will not grant citizenship nor residency but place them in a legal gray area of indentured servitude with the perpetual promise of more rights and the threat of revoking the status they have. As much as the base hates amnesty, they can be sold on bringing back slavery.
dm
@Baud: “Guest workers”. I wonder if their kids who are born here will have a path to citizenship, or are we talking permanent under-underclass, like fourth-generation “Koreans” in Japan.
Cain
@Peale:
You’d think that, by that time the purity madness will advance and poles and the Irish also not be considered white enough.. you can add the Italians too.
tBone
@? Martin:
something something Russian hotel room….
jk
OT
More idiocy from Trump
h/t http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/trump-anti-semitic-attacks-sometimes-its-reverse
Cain
@Mnemosyne:
And Egyptian born, so two-fer..
Baud
@dm:
Birthright citizenship is still in the constitution.
efgoldman
@schrodingers_cat:
Doesn’t that require a constitutional amendment?
humboldtblue
@jk:
They’re blaming Obama leftovers and OFA for the protests, the leaks and the fact that his administration is so fucking incompetent they make Palin look sharp. That’s what Trump was talking about.
goblue72
@Baud: @Baud: Precisely. This is likely just a trial balloon leak but I could certainly see Trump pushing something like this. The right instinctively hates anything that Democrats/Black Presidents/libtards propose even if its a Republican idea (See ACA), but have immediate amnesia if a Republican proposes the exact same thing.
Notice in the middle of the Muslim ban stuff that Trump made some nods that he wasn’t going to end DACA outright. Which got almost no attention outside the extreme far right. Fox News got its order and kept silent. (In contrast to Obama who got skewered over it.)
Same with this. An immigration “reform” proposed by Trump and the GOP will be announced as the greatest thing since sliced bread by the Fox News of the world and the right wing base will eat it up. Because it will be different. Because reasons.
Though the reality is likely that parts would be different – in the sense of moving towards a German style guest work program, that makes it near impossible for the indentured servant “guest workers” to ever have a path to becoming citizens. Industry gets all the bennies, and the white nationalists get to prevent the brown hordes from ever being part of the body politic. It will be the Bracero Program with Operating Weback front loaded.
terben
@David Rickard: Obersturmführer? That will burn. Miller would see himself as Obersturmbannführer at the very minimum.
JCJ
@efgoldman:
I used to get stopped re-entering the US. It happened several times. I would sometimes have to go to a waiting room where I was the only white guy. I asked why one time and they said that they were looking for someone with my name. According to a quick search there are over 27,000 people with this name. My wife had a green card at the time (she is now a US citizen) and had no problems. Since we knew it was going to happen we always tried to get in a line at immigration with a non white male as the agent. Those white guys would often start acting like they were about to save the world and be real dickish. I even got marched to the holding rooms twice. It hasn’t happened for a while now, but I wonder what it will be like next time I fly back.
Ric Drywall
I have some doubts. To a great extent, the base will believe what they are told to believe. If the “thought leaders” of the right are looking for a reason to become angry with Trump, this will be it. If they want to like Trump, they’ll let it slide and make excuses.
Lizzy L
Anthony Scaramucci, one of 45’s rat-fuckers, (excuse me, Senior Advisers) is already using Twitter to imply that the Democrats are responsible for the bomb threats against JCCs.
Yarrow
@efgoldman:
The former Norwegian Prime Minister who was traveling to the US on a diplomatic passport was detained by CBP. It was only an hour, though.
Kay
Lies openly and constantly and none of the FOX ghouls call him out on it.
He hasn’t accomplished anything- no substantive legislation. He’s basically “accomplished” a series of overblown press releases.
Trump looks and acts like a FOX host, BTW. That’s where he belongs- as host of a ranty cable bullshit show. He is IDEALLY suited to that job. It’s a perfect fit.
Roger Moore
@Iowa Old Lady:
CBP has been insane for a while; Trump has just gotten rid of the sane people at the top who were helping to keep the crazy in check.
The Moar You Know
I don’t think the GOP base can be sold anything anymore WRT keeping Hispanics in the country. Not anymore. Trump has no wiggle room here.
But the base happily will pay it. Hell, just tell ’em Obama let all the black folks steal all the chickens. You know how black folks like chicken. Problem solved.
danielx
@dr. bloor:
Hasn’t happened yet.
Drinking game: take a shot for every time lord shortfingers mentions his historic margin of victory in the electoral college. You know he won’t be able to resist the opportunity.
lamh36
So just in time for the LAST day of Black History Month AG KKKSessions… says DOJ will pull back on police civil suits…uh huh
NEW: AG Sessions: US Justice Dept. to “pull back” on suing police depts. over violating civil rights of minorities.
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne: And born in Egypt
bystander
@Baud:
Well, not necessarily in all copies of the Constitution. Some copies have special footnotes and have been edited for ease of construction.
The Moar You Know
@Lizzy L:
The “alt-right” – American Nazi Party scumbags, let’s call ’em what they are – have gone one better and are blaming the Jews themselves for it. That, by the way, is right out of Hitler’s playbook.
Immanentize
@Baud: @efgoldman: I know what is says:
But somehow right wing scholars say that does not imply birthright citizenship except for ex-slaves (so the argument goes). I am certain there are at least two votes on the Court for that proposition.
Immanentize
@goblue72:
This has been the goal all along — in-country apartheid. One step at a time. Look to Israel for the model (without the actual occupation).
Baud
@Immanentize: I’m sure they’ll take a pass at it. They still need five votes and they have, at most, two right now, as you said.
spc
Probably temporary work visas for industries that can prove need (like ag). Alabama is a lesson in real-life economic impacts and he’s probably feeling heat from certain business quarters. Wouldn’t expect it to be an iota more than this.
tobie
@Lizzy L: OK…so this is what tRump means by “reverse” in the bizarre statement @jk: quoted. In his warped mind, Democrats are making bomb threats against Jewish schools and community centers to make Republicans look bad. Jesus! He really has the mind of a 2 year old. Spill your drink and claim your sister did it so she can get punished.
schrodingers_cat
Right wing base will not eat up immigration reform no matter how modest. Remember what happened to Bush’s plan? He was the conservative darling and could do no wrong. It died in Congress.
danielx
@lamh36:
Imagine my surprise.
debbie
Does anyone know where that quote up top came from? I’d like to stick it in the faces of the anti-immigration people I know.
Mnemosyne
@Cain:
Like I said, Catholics are pretty far down on the white supremacist hate list, but we’re on there. Religion was always the beef against the Irish and Italians.
Peale
@jk: Reverse what?
Immanentize
@Roger Moore: OK law heads and brainy people — why does Border Patrol get to detail people for being in the country without permission? I am asking fer real. Is there a statute that allows it? Does detention =incarceration?
Meanwhile, I wish Mexico would stop accepting anyone from the US that we cannot prove is a Mexican citizen. They have played very nice on this issue taking suspected Mexican citizens as well as those who we suspected entered through Mexico. I really wish they would change that policy (also too, war on drugs). But maybe this will be Trumps big Putin war — the invasion and occupation of Mexico.
bystander
Here’s my bright spot on tonight: The ABC series When We Rise premieres tonight at 9 opposite Trumputin’s nazitistic harangue. Gus Van Zant collaborated with Dustin Lance Black and directed tonight’s segment. They collaborated on Milk, which I really liked, so here’s hoping.
Immanentize
@The Moar You Know: Their base cannot pay it. Therein lies the problem.
Iowa Old Lady
@debbie: Reuters
ETA: I pasted the quote in my search engine and this is what it kicked up. It’s what I used to do when I suspected plagiarism from one of my students.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: Good old Benji F did not like German Catholics either. They were swarthy and drank too much, according to BF.
Lizzy L
@The Moar You Know: Of course. And that’s what 45 is implying by his use of the word “reverse.” It’s non-specific enough that he can’t be challenged or called on it, but the alt-right portion of his base will recognize the implication and be comforted that he is still one of them, and the portion of his base that is uncomfortable with overt anti-Semitism (and yes, they do exist) will be mostly able to ignore it.
Immanentize
@Baud: agreed
debbie
@Iowa Old Lady:
Thanks!
ETA: Doh, I didn’t even think of that. I used to do that when family members sent ranting Obama emails using words I knew they didn’t know. Caught them every time.
The Moar You Know
@goblue72: You’re dead on right that’s what they’ll try to sell it as. But I just can’t see their base signing off on it.
If they were smart – which they aren’t – they’d just declare that all the “bad hombres” got deported and never talk about it again. Open up an investigation into Hillary’s email server. Christ knows that base of deplorables can’t keep more than one thing at a time in their idiot maggot brains.
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne: And the poles, czechs and slovaks! Don’t forget the citizens of the holy roman empire!
Yarrow
@bystander: Are you sure? I think all the networks are showing the presidential address.
debbie
I know I won’t be watching that abomination tonight, but if Trump does his handshake thing with legislators wanting to shake his hand, he won’t get to the podium until 10:30 at the earliest.
Brachiator
@Baud:
Yep. Trump might actually be able to sell a path to citizenship. He could also use this to disarm opponents among the Democrats. This is the first time that he seems to at least be offering something smart.
The trick is he would need to ask for a ton of money to increase the State Department’s ability to process applications.
And whatever happened with the new super duper vetting process? Doesn’t this require new staff?
Lizzy L
From the NYT:
Immanentize
@Lizzy L: Soon, thereafter he was removed from the meeting by Steve Miller who was observed shoving a syringe into the President’s neck.”
Steeplejack (tablet)
@bystander:
Sorry, the series starts tomorrow night. ABC is covering the presidential address tonight, like everybody else.
bystander
@Yarrow:
@Steeplejack (tablet):
Yeah, I’m totally wrong.
Well, I can dream, can’t I?
Mnemosyne
@Lizzy L:
Meh. He’s tried to “shift policy” before and immediately gotten slapped down. If he actually sticks to this and fights for it, it’ll be the first time in his life.
jk
@humboldtblue:
@Peale:
@tobie
@Lizzy L
Every day since the inauguration, I’ve been asking myself can Trump possibly get any dumber and every day the answer turns out to be Yes He Can.
The Democrats must win control of the Senate in the midterms in order to be able to put some brakes on this orange menace.
goblue72
@The Moar You Know: That’s basically what I was thinking. They front load Operating: WB (with the steroidal injection of all gloves are off they’ve handed to ICE), have a bunch of high profile mass deportations of all the “bad dudes” over some X period of time, and then roll out the “Mission Accomplished” banner. With that out of the way, they can roll out a “no hope of every being a citizen” guest worker program (in which all the guest workers are “extremely vetted”).
But yes, like you, I have my doubts that they could pull any of this off competently. (And by competent, I don’t mean I support it – just in the pull off their nasty plan without completely borking it)
Consider Phlebitis
@dr. bloor: It just means they’ll be primaried by ever-crazier GOP candidates.
tobie
@jk:
I don’t think we can even risk primaries for 2018 midterms. Dems are going to need to coalesce around their slate of candidates fast and fight like they’ve never fought before to make sure every potential Dem voter has the documentation to vote and has been canvassed. I know “Our Revolution” (trademark) will make a fuss about this but the hell with them. We’re trying to ensure the survival of the Republic, and right now it’s hanging by a thread.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
I don’t know her precise ethnic heritage, but pretty sure the Australian children’s book author, Mem Fox, is of classic WASP European stock. She was held and jerked around for a long time on her way to a literacy conference, despite having entered the U.S. close to 100 times by her reckoning. There was also a French academic, can’t recall his name, who was held for hours on his way to give a keynote address or speak on a panel or something at a conference in Texas.
ETA: As usual, others got there first.
SiubhanDuinne
@tobie:
Remember, always: In every single thing he does or says, he is PROJECTING. If he says someone else is doing, or going to do, something, it means he has done, is doing, or plans on doing that thing.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Moar You Know:
And Benghazi! Benghazi!! Benghazi!!!
david
Someone must have read the story about the illegal who ran the diner that’s been viral on twitter for the last couple of days… he bases opinions on the last tweets that come across his timeline. Hence, the sudden ‘switch’.
gex
@Mnemosyne: That might make them look unbaised to the base. I found the detention of the two white people interesting. Her detention and the French academic’s detention: an author who writes books celebrating diversity and acceptance and a scholar who studies Vichy France and Nazi collaboration.
It just felt like CBP/ICE report directly to Bannon.