In other words, the bill was a stunt meant to virtue-signal to the base about the left’s hostility to immigration enforcement. They got ahead of themselves in their rush to pander and Republicans tried to make them pay. How outrageous that the GOP would try to divide the Democratic Party by pushing this … Democratic bill.
Why they drafted it in the first place, I have no idea. They had to know Republicans might seize on it and force a vote, gaining mileage from the results when centrist Dems pissed off the base by voting no and left-wing Dems pissed off swing voters by voting yes. Progressives would have been better off treating abolishing ICE as something aspirational, to be taken up if and only if the House is back in Democratic hands.
I hate to break it to Pocan and the rest but a floor vote right now with Ryan at the helm may be as close as he ever gets to putting his colleagues on record about his idea. If you think Republican leaders are chilly about abolishing ICE, wait until Speaker Pelosi takes charge and starts gearing up for 2020, knowing that it’ll help Democrats in the Rust Belt if they can at least pretend for two years that they’re not in favor of open borders. The “abolish ICE” act is going away for awhile, perhaps never to return. If Pocan wants back in this conversation, he should get cracking on a more politically palatable “reform ICE” act instead.
Reps. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Adriano Espaillat of New York introduced a bill to abolish ICE, titled the Establishing a Humane Immigration Enforcement Act on Thursday.
It allowed one year for the termination of ICE.
Within hours, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced he would bring the bill to the floor for a vote, according to The Hill. That was clever.
“Democrats have been trying to make July 4th about abolishing ICE, which is a radical, extreme position that would lead to open borders and undermine America’s national security,” House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) told The Hill.
“I think it’s the wrong approach. I think everyone ought to be on record about where they stand on that issue.”
Democrats claim ICE is militarized, when, in fact, the truth is they are the extremists who want open borders.
Democrats are angry about the Republicans letting the bill get to the floor. After all, it was merely a political ploy to please their hard-left base and keep the protests going. Perhaps they should be more honest with their base and they wouldn’t have this problem.
Just wait until Trump turns all of this Russian election interference hubbub into an Election Integrity Act with voter ID, voter eligibility verification, and paper ballots. Their shifting postures will put most of them in the hospital…medical and/or mental.