WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump urged Republican lawmakers on Friday to drop their efforts to pass comprehensive immigration legislation until after the November elections, which he hopes will boost the party’s majority in Congress.
Trump, faced with a public outcry over his policy that separated children from their migrant parents at the US border with Mexico, tried to refocus the immigration debate on Congress in a series of early morning posts on Twitter.
Despite Republican control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the party’s slim 51-49 majority in the latter chamber makes some Democratic support necessary to pass most legislation. Trump has often chafed at this, which also leaves his party vulnerable to dissent by just one or two Republican senators.
“Elect more Republicans in November and we will pass the finest, fairest and most comprehensive Immigration Bills anywhere in the world,” Trump said on Twitter.
“Republicans should stop wasting their time on Immigration until after we elect more Senators and Congressmen/women in November. Dems are just playing games, have no intention of doing anything to solves this decades old problem. We can pass great legislation after the Red Wave!” he said.
In fact, many analysts say the party could suffer losses this November, when all 435 House seats and a third of the 100-member Senate will be up for grabs.
Trump bowed to intense pressure on Wednesday and signed an order ending the separation of children from their families while parents are prosecuted for crossing the border illegally, which had caused uproar at home and abroad. He said then he still wanted Congress to pass a more comprehensive immigration bill.
The House on Thursday rejected a bill favoured by conservatives that would have halted the practice of splitting up families and addressed a range of other immigration issues.
The bill was defeated in a 231-193 vote, with 41 Republicans joining the opposition. The House also postponed, likely until next week, a vote on a more moderate bill in order to try to drum up more support.
However, Trump’s latest tweets could gut that effort.
“Game over,” said Representative Mark Sanford, a Republican critic of Trump who came under withering attack from the president before losing his primary race this month.
“It takes the wind out of the sails in what might have been a fairly productive weekend in terms of looking for a compromise,” Sanford told CNN.
“Without the president having legislators’ backs, there’s no way they’re going to take the risks that would be inherent in a major reform bill.” Both bills had received backing from Trump but were rejected by Democrats and immigration advocacy groups as too harsh. They would fund a wall Trump has long proposed along the border with Mexico and would also reduce legal migration.
As Republicans in Congress struggled to reach consensus on immigration legislation, the White House has grappled with fierce criticism in recent weeks over the policy that has separated more than 2,300 children from their families.
Despite his concession on Wednesday, Trump suggested on Friday that some of the wrenching tales that have emerged from the border were fabricated by Democrats, tweeting, “We cannot allow our country to be overrun by illegal immigrants as the Democrats tell their phony stories of sadness and grief, hoping it will help them in the elections.”
Following the president’s order to keep families together in detention during immigration proceedings, it remained unclear how and when those children would be reunited with their parents, and where families would be held while the parents face criminal charges.
It was also not clear if the government would keep prosecuting cases against people caught crossing the border illegally. It was the administration’s policy of zero tolerance — announced in April — that led to blanket prosecutions, including of adults travelling with children.
Amid confusion over Trump’s efforts to roll back the policy of family separations, officials said on Thursday the US military has been asked to get ready to house up to 20,000 immigrant children. No decision on this has been made yet. — Reuters
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