Although the legislation no longer grabs the headlines it once did, the DREAM Act still has many advocates on Capitol Hill. In fact, supporters of the proposal reintroduce the legislation every year, knowing full well it won’t pass but reminding the political establishment and its intended beneficiaries that some still see it as a priority.
This year, however, the bill lost a high-profile co-sponsor. Notus reports:
Ahead of his re-election bid next year, Sen. Lindsey Graham dropped his support for the DREAM Act, a bill to help undocumented immigrants that he has co-sponsored every time for nearly a decade.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin reintroduced the bill earlier this month. Instead of joining Graham as a Republican co-sponsor, Durbin was paired with Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Graham told NOTUS that he does not support the legislation because of the number of illegal immigrants living in the country.
As a political matter, this development likely won’t surprise many: The South Carolina Republican bears little resemblance to an earlier version of himself, so it’s not surprising to see him abandon a bill he’s supported for years.
In reality, Graham’s switch probably won’t have much of an impact, since the DREAM Act isn’t going anywhere anyway.
But the senator’s stance is emblematic of a larger reality that may be overlooked: Democratic efforts to reach a bipartisan agreement with Republicans on immigration policy don’t actually make much sense because Republican officials keep walking away from their own deals.
The DREAM Act is a classic example. In the not-too-distant past, Democrats were content simply to extend citizenship to young immigrants who entered the United States as children and had been on American soil nearly their entire lives. Bipartisan talks began as Republicans balked at what they denounced as “amnesty.”
The result was the Alien Minors Development, Relief, and Education Act — better known by its acronym, the Dream Act — which was authored in part by the late Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch. The idea is not “amnesty,” but to create a path to citizenship for these young immigrants: graduate high school, get conditional permanent residence status, pay some fees, and at that point, they’ll be eligible for citizenship.
It was a bipartisan compromise supported by Graham and the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, among others — until Republican politics shifted sharply to the right, some of the party’s old guard died, and Graham decided to go with the prevailing wind in the party.
But this isn’t the only example. When Barack Obama approached Republicans about a possible immigration deal, they responded that they would work with a Democratic White House if he tightened border security.
That’s exactly what Obama did — and despite this, Republicans rejected the bipartisan deal.
In fact, even after the Gang of Eight agreement was formed, not only were Republican officials opposed to bipartisan compromise, but also then-Republican senators. Florida’s Marco Rubio ultimately denounced the legislation He helped write it.
Conventional wisdom holds that legislative breakthroughs on major issues are possible only if both sides accept concessions and reach an agreement. But what’s the point of striking a deal with Republicans on immigration when they routinely abandon deals they once loved?
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