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A bipartisan compromise on immigration and border security is all but guaranteed to fail for the second time in the U.S. Senate this week. Democrats will blame Republicans, Republicans will blame Democrats, the campaign-industrial complex will churn out attack ads, and yet again, nothing will get done on this issue.
It shouldn’t be this way — not when a strong majority of Americans continue to support a balanced and comprehensive approach to immigration reform.
Americans increasingly see immigration as the top issue facing this country. They rightly view the status quo at the southern border as unsustainable, and would like to improve border security while providing a predictable legal path forward for migrants already here and contributing to the American economy.
The popularity of this balanced approach to immigration is nothing new. For years, Congress has stood in the way. And lately, the biggest obstacle has been the willingness from many Republicans, especially former President Donald Trump, to forgo balanced if imperfect steps forward in order to campaign on the chaos of inaction.
The legislation being considered, and likely to be rejected, on Thursday in the Senate was the product of months of bipartisan negotiation. Republican negotiator U.S. Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma did what his fellow Republicans asked: He forged a deal with Democrats that would have strengthened border security, tightened the asylum process and moved forward with needed foreign aid.
At the time, Republicans were saying that border security improvements were the price for more foreign aid. And Lankford secured some fairly conservative-leaning concessions from Democrats on immigration policy. But then most of them (with the exception of a few Republicans like U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, who has long supported comprehensive immigration reform) turned their backs on Lankford and what would have been a partial step forward.
Congress recently showed that doing the right thing can win out over election year politics by passing aid for Ukraine and other allies, and that approach is still desperately needed with immigration as well. We don’t expect it will materialize this week, with even Lankford dismissing the resuscitation of his proposal as a political gambit doomed to fail. The bipartisan approach that created this proposal, however, is still sorely needed. Together with Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and independent U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Lankford proved that this is still possible
“The bill that I worked with Senator Murphy and Senator Sinema on — we’re not going to be able to pass,” Lankford said, as reported by The New York Times. “So let’s find the sections of it that we can pass. The worst-case scenario is doing nothing. That’s what we’re currently doing.”
If there are actually pieces of the compromise that can be passed (and there certainly should be), advance them. This vote, even as it careens to a likely failure, should shake senators from both parties from the do-nothing status quo.
The American people have made it clear that they want an immigration system that is both secure and humane. The current situation under President Joe Biden is not secure enough, and the languishing Republican proposal known as H.R. 2 fails to reflect that necessary humanity.
So the clear path forward, as it has been for years, is compromise and comprehensive reform. The bipartisan deal struck by Lankford and others, though modest, should continue to serve as a building block to more discussion and collaboration. Thursday’s vote will most surely fail in the Senate, but as it eventually did with foreign aid, the idea of working together toward incremental, yet imperfect solutions should win out.
