No. of Recommendations: 10
The difference is that this number is codified in law and ties the hands of any President who wanted to declare an emergency along the border.
How does it tie their hands? They don't have the ability to violate the asylum laws now, emergency or not. Right now, every single person who gets encountered by the Border Patrol has the right to assert a defensive asylum claim. Declaring an emergency on the border doesn't change that - which is one of the (many) reasons why Trump never did that, despite encounters skyrocketing to nearly a million during the last year before the pandemic.
The reasons the democrats came to the table at all are as follows:
1. They wanted more money for Ukraine
2. Blue city Mayors let them have it
3. They're getting decimated in the polls
It wasn't for any altruistic reasons.
So what? That's why the GOP was able to get an almost-entirely enforcement bill teed up in the Senate. Biden was in a position where he both wanted to shove that bill down the throats of the pro-immigrant faction in the party, and the political circumstances where he could force them to swallow it without killing it. Because he wanted something outside of immigration (Ukraine and Israel aid) and the GOP had successfully managed to link them. That was the whole point - Abbott dealt Congressional Republicans a winning hand to finally force the Democrats to make concessions on immigration without any of their normal "deal-breakers," especially the DREAMERs.
Those circumstances only come around once every generation or two....and the GOP blew it. They successfully maneuvered the Democrats into having to make major concessions on immigration in order to get the Ukraine funding, despite there being a sizable proportion (more than a dozen) of Senators who strongly support Ukraine funding. And then they blew it up to get nothing.
