Subject: Re: Appaling
And there's never been a shortage of Centrist Democratic types willing to give the GOP what they want along the border, either.

Oh? Like who?
Is there a Lindsey Graham border hawk person in the [d] ranks someplace who routinely crosses the aisle and helps the Republicans craft legislation? <-- I threw that last bit in there to disqualify Joe Manchin.

But they get derailed because maximalists prefer the status quo to actually fixing some of the major problems. Which is what's happening right now.

It's hardly "maximalist" to throw at least one piece of meat towards the GOP caucus. Just one.

The status quo is the status quo, and has been for 40 years. The southern border isn't wide open - literally millions of people get arrested and detained when they try to cross it, and other than the percentage of folks that are able to establish asylum claims (a small fraction of those who get detained), they end up getting deported in the end.

Asylees are getting courts dates in 2031. We've established that. That's as close to a de facto amnesty as you're going to get.

Question: When these people fail to show up for their court dates, will the democrats get behind mass deportations? I'll go ahead and answer: absolutely not.

What have Democrats gained from Congress on immigration in the last 40 years? Seriously? Every effort to reform immigration to provide for a pathway to citizenship - for DREAMERs or anyone else - has died in Congress. The 2007 immigration reform bill died. The 2013 immigration reform bill died. Immigrant advocates have gotten virtually nothing through Congress in forty years, either.

From Congress? Nothing. The democrats have managed to block any serious tightening of the border while maintaining a drumbeat for "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" which is a fancy euphemism for amnesty programs. What the democrats HAVE gotten is from Obama's Magic Pen, the one that delivers executive action.

Here. I'll give you an example of how it went under Trump. It's actually taught in a fairly even handed way in B-schools for negotiation:

https://www.pon.harvard.edu/da...

Here's how it went.
Talks took off in early 2018, after Trump gave his stamp of approval to bipartisan negotiations. On January 9, the president convened a meeting at the White House with 25 Democratic and Republican members of Congress who had been active on immigration and then–Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen.

Okay. So far so good. What was the deal?

Most lawmakers argued the bill should cover just three issues: (1) protections for Dreamers; (2) beefed-up border security, including Trump’s campaign promise of a border wall between the United States and Mexico; and (3) efforts to reduce immigration based on family ties, sometimes known as chain migration. The scope was narrow, but the inclusion of issues on which they disagreed could give Democrats and Republicans opportunities for integrative negotiations by making tradeoffs.

Great. Always start with a framework that you can build around. Based on this thread some common ground could be found. But what happened?

Dianne Feinstein went to the standard democrat party playbook. You can see real time right here what I've mentioned several times upthread:

Democratic senator Diane Feinstein then made a bold proposal to Trump: “What about a clean DACA bill now, with a commitment that we go into a comprehensive immigration reform procedure?” She was asking for a bill on a single, Democratic-favored issue—protections for Dreamers—with no other issues on which Republicans could negotiate concessions, such as border security.

A clean DACA bill now, then maybe we'll consider giving you something down the road. Trump actually said 'yes' to this.

Butt....
“Would you be agreeable to that?” Feinstein said.

“Yeah, I would like to do that,” Trump said.

No doubt alarmed, Republican senator and Trump ally Kevin McCarthy interjected: “Mr. President, you need to be clear, though . . . you have to have security. . . .”

“I think that’s what she’s saying,” President Trump said of Feinstein.

“I think she’s saying something different,” said McCarthy. “I’m thinking you’re saying DACA without security,” he said to Feinstein. “Are you talking about security as well?”

Feinstein suggested postponing the security issue.

Because of course she did.

The story finishes with the Gang of 6 going away and negotiating something only to have immigration hard-liners from the GOP blow it all up at the end of the day. I don't know if that's true or not but the main point of the story is how these debates have always gone: democrats insist on an upfront payment for something they never deliver in the future.

It's like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown.

Nor has anyone shown me a single thing that Republicans are willing to trade. Seriously - there was a time when they would at least even pay lip service to the idea of normalizing the legal status of DREAMERS by passing....well, the DREAM Act. Even that's gone now. There is literally no reform to the immigration system that the Republicans are willing to trade in exchange for the tighter enforcement they claim is so critical. Which is why the House GOP was threatening to torpedo the current discussions - no matter what the deal was - even before Trump got involved. Because they know there is nothing at all that they want to give the Democrats, no matter what's on the table in exchange.

Welp, hilariously, the closest anyone's come on actually negotiating something...was Trump.