Immigration reform, support for allies undermined
Republicans in the U.S. Congress insisted that they would not support additional funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan unless Democrats agreed to include funding to fix the immigration problems on the southern border. This led to a months-long effort to negotiate a bipartisan bill in the Senate to step up and resolve many of the key immigration problems. After reaching the point of agreement on a bill that seemed to have the needed 60 votes to pass, the bill was abruptly torpedoed at the behest of Donald Trump, who wants things to continue as they are so he can use immigration as a campaign issue.
After Republicans in the Senate blocked the bipartisan immigration bill, some of them joined with Democrats to pass a bipartisan supplemental funding bill that was limited to supporting our allies. This bill was then sent to the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, Speaker Johnson said that he would refuse to bring the supplemental funding bill to the floor for a vote because it does not contain immigration reform. What an irrational vicious circle!
Instead of passing problem-solving legislation, the narrow Republican majority in the House passed a measure to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, despite having no evidence of “high crimes and misdemeanors” as required by the US Constitution. One journalist characterized the accusations as “maladministration”. Impeachment was never intended to be used against a cabinet secretary because of a difference of opinion about his administrative decisions.
Both Berrien County Representatives, Huizenga and Walberg, voted aye for this nonsensical impeachment resolution.
Trump has said that if elected, he will be a dictator. He has also said that if elected he will mobilize ICE agents, FBI, Drug Enforcement, federal prosecutors and the National Guard to carry out investigations of anyone suspected of being an undocumented immigrant. In imagining this in practice, I can visualize both uniformed and plain clothed agents stopping millions of people to review their “papers”, as portrayed in many 1930’s scenarios from pre-WWII Nazi Germany.
With control of the House narrowly in the hands of the Republican party, both immigration reform and support for our European, Middle Eastern, and Asian allies are being controlled by Donald Trump, who has a history of supporting dictators like Vladimir Putin, threatening to abandon our NATO allies, and consistently placing himself above the needs of our country.
Trump is a clear and present danger to the future of our democratic republic.
Ed Shaffer
Galien