It’s not every day you see Democratic Party talking points repeated on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, but it does happen occasionally, especially when the subject is immigration, and Daniel Henninger’s case for Sen. James Lankford’s (R-OK) border capitulation to Democrats is such an occurrence.
Henninger, who tells us that Lankford is not just “conservative” but “very conservative,” seizes on recent comments from former President Donald Trump who urged congressional Republicans not to pass border legislation “unless we get EVERYTHING” because a win on the border “would be another Gift to the Radical Left Democrats.”
Henninger argues against this Trump cynicism, claiming that “Doing nothing so that he and Republicans will have an issue to run on means the migrant open hydrant will flow daily for all of 2024. And that means an additional two million or so illegal migrants will enter the U.S.”
Leaving Trump aside, allowing 2 million more illegal migrants into the United States would be bad. Taking action to prevent that from happening would be good. But that is where Henninger’s argument falls apart. He never identifies how exactly the Lankford deal would force Biden to stop letting illegal migrants into the country.
The closest he comes is this paragraph: “A main purpose of the Lankford compromise is immediately to put a thumb in the dike of so-called humanitarian parole, the once-useful entry policy for genuine asylum seekers, such as from Afghanistan, which Mr. Biden has turned into virtually unlimited catch-and-release.”
Problem is, the Lankford bill does not touch parole.
Now maybe every outlet that has been covering the negotiations is wrong, but this New York Times article is a pretty typical recount of where the Lankford legislation stands on parole.
“While many Democrats have rallied around the idea of reducing the influx of migrants unlawfully trying to enter the United States, they have balked at the Republican demands to directly limit parole authority,” the New York Times reports.
“Proponents contend that those measures would effectively reduce the number of migrants who would need to be granted parole,” the New York Times continues. “But Republicans have sought a hard cap on the number of migrants who can receive parole, as well as the elimination of group-based parole. The deal does not include either.”
In other words, far from ending Biden’s parole power, the Lankford bill leaves it completely untouched.
Unfortunately, not only does the Lankford bill do nothing to rescind Biden’s parole powers, it makes it easier for Biden to abuse them by flooding Democratic cities and states with bailout money to help clothe, feed, shelter, educate, and provide healthcare for migrants that are currently busting blue state budgets.
Henninger never mentions this little section of the Lankford bill.
Henninger seems to be operating under the naive assumption that Democrats want to solve the border crisis by reducing the number of migrants entering the United States. That’s not true. If anything, Biden wants to process them into the country faster.
What Biden does need Congress for is to appropriate money to bail out Democratic communities suffering fiscal heartburn from the migrant crisis. Just listen to Democrats talk about their solutions to the crisis. Here is Denver Mayor Mike Johnston. “They should have federal dollars to help support them in the cities they arrive in,” he recently told CNN. “We should have a coordinated national plan for where these folks arrive.”
Nothing about stopping the flow of migrants. Just federal bailouts to “support” migrants when they arrive and a “national plan” for distributing them more equitably around the country. That’s a recipe for more illegal migrants entering the United States over the next year, not less.
Does it help that Trump is advertising his opposition to the Lankford bill and calling for Republicans to oppose it for purely political reasons?
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No. It does not help.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the Lankford bill is a terrible deal and Republicans should oppose it on purely policy grounds.