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Sinema ally calls House’s racist immigration bill ‘a good first step’

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Sinema is also trying to lead on a larger immigration bill, and she’s working with House and Senate Republicans to do it. The Washington Post reports that she’s taking “advantage of the moment” of the House bill to push her Republican-aligned efforts. She’s been working with Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales and nominal Democrat Henry Cuellar, both of Texas, on a bill, along with a host of other Republicans from the House.

Just to show how not bipartisan this effort is, Tillis—the Republican—is her partner on it as opposed to Democrats like Dick Durbin who have been working on the issue for decades. Tillis called the extremist House bill “a good first step.” He called it “a good foundation,” and added “That’s what I was hoping they’d send us.”

That “good foundation” includes billions more for building Donald Trump’s border wall and new severe restrictions on asylum seekers. Migrants could only apply for asylum if they could prove they had applied and been rejected by other countries, or if they could prove they were a victim of trafficking. It sets a higher bar for asylum claims, making it harder for people to prove persecution, and disallowing claims from people who opposed terrorist or gang activities as grounds for needing to flee their homelands. It imposes a $50 application fee. And it creates new criminal penalties for migrants who overstay their visas.

The White House has already issued a veto threat, saying it would “would cut off nearly all access to humanitarian protections in ways that are inconsistent with our Nation’s values and international obligations.” The bill “would make things worse, not better,” the White House said. “Because this bill does very little to actually increase border security while doing a great deal to trample on the Nation’s core values and international obligations, it should be rejected.”

That’s what Sinema’s legislative partner, Tillis, calls “a good foundation.” The people in the House who wrote that bill are who Sinema has decided to work with. She’s not going to be working with Democrats in any kind of good faith on this, because she has never acted in good faith. Look at what she was saying about the border back when she was a “progressive.”


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