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Wednesday Immigration Brief: Speaker McCarthy Preview

Added 2022-10-19 20:24:04 +0000 UTC

Hello readers! Republicans are predicted to take at least the House back at the polls next month. Let's take a quick look at what that means for immigrants.

Less than three weeks from now, voters will head to the polls to vote in a midterm election that is less a referendum on immigration policy and more an opportunity for politicians to scapegoat migrants from all over the world with a simple bogeyman: "the border."

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is expected to become Speaker of the House in the likely event that the GOP retakes the lower chamber of Congress next month. McCarthy tells Punchbowl his immigration policy priority will be border-first, and that he is unwilling to trade citizenship pathways (or even DACA) for enforcement.

If Republicans win the House, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is expected to chair the House Judiciary committee, which shares direct jurisdiction over immigration policy with the Homeland Security committee, where Ranking Member John Katko (R-NY) is retiring.

Katko’s retirement leaves the Homeland Security Chair under House GOP rule an open question, but the Committee is bound to attract hawkish Republicans looking to score political points by blaming immigrants for everything. Look for GOP Reps. Michael McCaul (TX) and Dan Bishop (NC) to contend for the Chairmanship.

Blaming immigrants for everything is central to the GOP playbook for the midterm. Crime is the narrative. Immigrants are the cases in point which brings us back to “the border.” Conflating all immigrants with migrants crossing the Rio Grande is how most GOP lawmakers answer questions about immigration, especially in House Leadership, where I’ve asked everyone from McCarthy to Elise Stefanik (NY) about the legal immigrant backlog only to have them answer about the border.

To his credit, Rep. Steve Scalise usually has a more-nuanced take on the immigration challenges facing the national economy, but when push comes to shove, the Louisiana Republican is unlikely to stick his neck out for anyone who may be (falsely) blamed for ‘stealing American jobs.’

There are Senate GOP Republicans who are more engaged on the issue as a practical matter. Thom Tillis from North Carolina, for example, approaches immigrant relief policy with a focus on businesses and the economy. Ditto for Roger Marshall from Kansas.

Roy Blunt, the retiring senior senator from Missouri is a Senate Republican who has vocally supported Dreamers -- OG and documented -- every time I’ve asked him about a new relief policy measure that would impact those communities.

Sens. Chuck Grassley (IA) and John Cornyn (TX) have both left the negotiating table on immigration policy, where many advocates say they have always been obstructionist. The truth is more nuanced and will be the subject of future news bulletins here at Pablo Reports.

Getting ten Senate Republicans on a standalone immigrant relief measure is tricky. Even widely popular bipartisan measures from a Congress ago, like the Eagle Act or even the Dream Act several Congresses ago, have been largely abandoned by Republicans in the upper chamber.

Getting fifty Democrats on a relief measure in the lame duck is similarly not as obvious as it may seem. Recall that it was Senator John Tester (D-MT) who introduced the Title 42 messaging amendment during the votarama last summer that was voted for by Democrats Catherine Cortez-Masto (NV), Raphael Warnock (GA), Mark Kelly (AZ), and Maggie Hassan (NH).

This all makes the upcoming weeks and months super interesting when it comes to immigration policy. If the GOP takes over either (or both) chamber, the lame duck session will be a pressure cooker for lawmakers when it comes to immigrant relief. Advocates will be pushing harder than ever to get their relief items through.

Ultimately, no one seems to believe that any relief for immigrants will come from a GOP-ruled Congress (a point I disagree on … but that’s a story for another bulletin). At the same time, Democrats haven’t given immigrant relief advocates any reason to believe that, if reelected, they will finally keep their promises to immigrants and their families.