Q&A of the day – About Congressional Control & Illegal Immigration
It’s the Q&A of the day. Each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
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Feel free to shoot away with your questions and I’ll do my best to keep up. Today’s question comes from Thomas:
For all of those carrying water for Orange Twitler and his administration, riddle me this? In Trump’s first two years in the White House, all three branches were Republican controlled. Why didn’t he get the funding for his wall then? I'll wait. BTW, what is the plan for the 44% of illegals in our country that arrive via commercial air and then overstay their visas? A wall isn’t going to stop that. Thanks.
Bottom Line: The characterization of the president aside, these are valid questions. Starting with congressional control over the prior two years. You have to decide for yourself whether you support Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer or President Trump on this issue.
Yes, Republicans held majorities in the House and Senate during the prior session. The House did, on multiple occasions, pass funding for the border wall project to the Senate. Senate Republicans would have passed the funding had they been presented with the opportunity to do so. Republicans held 52, later 51 seats during the prior Congress. Democrats in the Senate chose to filibuster, or block, the legislation from advancing in the Senate. Under Senate rules, new legislation requires 60 votes to clear a filibuster.
President Trump was at odds with Leader McConnell on this issue repeatedly, as he called on Mitch McConnell to change Senate rules eliminating the legislative filibuster, just as former Democratic leader Harry Reid had done on judicial confirmations years earlier. Side note, this paved the path for numerous federal judges to become confirmed with fewer than 60 votes including SCOTUS justices, Gorsuch and Kavanagh.
Mitch refused to do so, fearing changes in prescient would be used against Republicans in the future if he did make the change. If you agree with President Trump’s position, then yes, the Republican majority failed to act on this issue. If you agree with Mitch’s and Chuck’s position, the Republican majority argument in the Senate is a moot point on this topic.
As for the second part to your question regarding illegal immigrants that come via visas and non-border crashing methods. Glad you asked. That’s why we have ICE. The Border Patrol and ICE are two separate entities. The wall is a request from the Border Patrol to enable them to more effectively and safely carry out their responsibilities. Inside the United States, the role of ICE is to identify and remove those who are illegally here. So that’s the plan.
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