Kim Reynolds thinks she knows better than border agents how to deal with illegal immigration.
Iowa's governor crawls to MAGA
The union representing US border patrol agents and other workers is supporting the aggressive new border security bill unveiled in Washington, D.C., this week, but Kim Reynolds thinks she has a better idea.
Iowa's governor said Monday we don’t need a new law to solve the border crisis. Instead, she's going to send National Guard troops to the Mexican border.
Again.
This will be the third time that Reynolds has tried this ploy. You'd think by now, she’d realize it’s not working. Illegal border crossings have increased sharply since 2021, when Reynolds and a bunch of other Republican governors first began trying this tactic.
The National Border Patrol Council has a better idea. The union that represents 18,000 border patrol agents and other personnel—and that endorsed Donald Trump in 2020—is backing the new bi-partisan border security plan and urging Congress to quickly pass it.
The bill isn't perfect, the council says, but it gives them powers they’ve never had before and it’s “a step in the right direction and is far better than the current status quo.”
But Donald Trump likes the status quo.
Now, so does Kim Reynolds.
The governor knows she can’t afford to oppose Trump again. Her bet on Ron DeSantis failed miserably last month, so she’s got to get back into MAGA’s good graces. What better way than to crawl to Trump?
In the process, Reynolds dismisses a border security plan that the Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board says, “is the most restrictive migrant legislation in decades.”
“This is almost entirely a border security bill,” the Journal says, “and its provisions include long-time GOP priorities that the party’s restrictionists could never have passed only a few months ago.”
But Donald Trump wants to campaign on border chaos, so Reynolds and company will comply.
The price of this debasement is a continued crisis at the border.
It doesn’t matter that this bill would mean major new investments in the country’s asylum system, so that applicants aren’t waiting years in the US for adjudication. Instead, the aim is six months.
It doesn’t matter that this plan would send much-needed financial help to state and local governments, in Texas and elsewhere, who are struggling with migrants flooding their communities.
It doesn’t matter that this bill includes new penalties to target illicit fentanyl trafficking.
Apparently, Kim Reynolds doesn’t like that idea. She thinks a third try at sending a few dozen National Guard troops to the border is a much better solution.
Joe Biden and the Democrats de-emphasized the border for too long. But a combination of negative news coverage and the callous shipment of migrants by Republican governors to Democrat-run states forced their hand. The White House came to the table and, from a lousy bargaining position, gave GOP negotiators much of what they wanted.
Now, Republicans don’t want the win. Not if Joe Biden gets to share in any part of it. Some in Congress are even outright admitting they don’t want to act before the election.
Yet, these are the people who say they’re against an “open border.”
The truth is, if this bill was law, the border could be shut down much more easily.
Contrary to Republican lies, the plan says when illegal border crossings average 5,000 a day for a week, the government could bar most migrant asylum claims. In December, the daily average was 8,000.
This is the kind of authority Trump begged for when he was president.
No wonder a lot of immigration advocates are against the plan.
“This bill would only ensure that we sent individuals and families back to danger,” Efren C. Olivares, the deputy legal director for immigrant justice at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said, according to a Texas news outlet.
Reynolds isn’t the only Republican crawling to Trump. Even the so-called national security hawks, like Joni Ernst, were showing signs of knuckling under—even though she knows this plan contains financial aid that Ukrainian fighters desperately need to fight Vladimir Putin.
The question is, would this really be a win for Biden?
I’m not so sure.
The president already has angered parts of his liberal base over the Israel-Hamas war, and the party’s progressive wing that was horrified by Trump’s border policies are wondering what they’re getting for supporting Biden.
For Biden, this clearly is an attempt to get a problem under control that he believes, overall, is politically damaging. But the so-called cure may come with some pretty nasty side effects if his base, particularly young voters, feel alienated.
Right now, it looks like this bill is going nowhere. Mitch McConnell has done the political math, too, and in a turnabout has given approval to his caucus to oppose a procedural vote. Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, who won the enthusiastic support of Iowa’s entire delegation, doomed the proposal in that chamber before he even saw the details.
So, instead of doing the right thing and urging our congressional delegation to back a bill that border agents actually want, Kim Reynolds refused.
Instead, she’ll send some National Guard troops to the border and pretend she’s helping.
This will help her with MAGA, but it betrays the rest of us.
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Party before country a continued theme. If the House Republicans were serious about solving the problem their response to the current bill should include their solutions not just DOA. They just aren’t interested in governing and admit they are the do nothing party.
Go to a big city and look around. The ignoring of our laws, as much as they need modernizing, has a huge impact. In New York they shut down schools to house illegals. In Denver, they use the convention center and over 25% of the budget to care for these people. Be critical all you want but the notion of the population the size of Bettendorf arriving in Denver with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no prospects for tomorrow is not fair to the illegals or US citizens. It's simply irresponsible and needs to stop.