MAGA Republicans 'holding hostages' by threatening to shut down gov't - opinion

If you listen to Donald Trump, you’d think Hamas has opened a second front along the Rio Grande River. To hear the former president tell it, Islamist terrorists are coming across America’s southern border along with the dregs of other countries’ prisons and mental institutions.

“The same people that raided Israel are pouring into our once beautiful USA, through our totally open southern border, at record numbers,” he wrote on Truth Social on October 9. “Are they planning an attack within our country? Crooked Joe Biden and his boss Barack Hussein Obama did this to us!”

Before you run to your shelters or to your local gun store, there’s something you should know: there’s not a word of truth in what Trump said. As usual. Don’t forget this is the guy who launched his first presidential campaign calling Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists, and vowed to ban Muslims from entering this country. More recently, he has vowed to purge the country of migrants. 

US Customs and Border Protection, the folks patrolling the southern border, said it “has seen no indication of Hamas-directed foreign fighters seeking to make entry into the United States.”

Out of the estimated 2.5 million people crossing the border from Mexico last year, only 169 migrants’ identities matched names on the terrorist watch-list, up from 100 the year before, according to CBP. The agency noted that did not indicate that the individuals were terrorists, but possibly relatives or friends or coincidental names.

“No one has been killed or injured in a terrorist attack in the United States that involved someone who came across the border illegally since 1975,” according to the libertarian Cato Institute, reported The New York Times.

Fear and loathing are central messages in Trump’s campaign as he and most Republicans seek to make border security and immigration central issues of the 2024 campaign.

In the overheated partisan rhetoric polluting the air these days it is hard to tell how much border security is a crisis and how much is a political issue. Yes, it is a real problem, but where you sit often defines where you stand.

MAGA Republicans

HAMAS ISN’T the only group holding hostages. MAGA Republicans in the House of Representatives won’t release emergency war assistance for Israel and Ukraine unless Democrats meet their ransom demands: approve HR 2, the draconian immigration bill they passed along party lines last year (minus two Republican defections).

Those aren’t their only hostages. They’re also threatening to shut down the government by blocking spending bills that must be passed, one next week and the other in February. Same ransom demands plus new limits on abortion rights.

Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, announced last weekend that he reached a compromise with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democratic, on a spending compromise, but he faces a rebellion from his hardline conservatives. The Freedom Caucus denounced the deal as a “total failure” and “totally unacceptable.” They have been threatening to shut down the government unless their immigration bill, the Secure Border Act, becomes law. 

They don’t have enough votes to block final passage if Democrats support the legislation, but they have shown an ability to toss procedural wrenches that can halt the machinery.

”Shut the border down, or we’ll shut the government down. We control the money,” demanded Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Arizona) in an X posting. Similar messages came from Republican Reps. Matt Rosendale of Montana, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Eli Crane of Arizona, and Bob Good of Virginia, chair of the Freedom Caucus. 

A partial shutdown will begin on January 19 if Johnson can’t get his compromise bill passed, and a full closure in February.

HR 2 faces solid Democratic opposition in the Senate and President Joe Biden has threatened to veto it. The bill would impose harsh restrictions on asylum seekers, purge the US workforce of undocumented workers, threaten criminal action against their employers, build 900 miles of Trump’s wall along the 2,000-mile Mexican border, and waive all environmental and other legal reviews to expedite construction. 

It would also defund any non-profits aiding undocumented immigrants, subsidize state border forces, end protection for migrant children, allow indefinite family detention, family separation, and fast-track deportation of unaccompanied children, among other provisions.

A bipartisan group of senators is trying to come up with a border security compromise. Even if they find common ground, far-right House Republicans are threatening to block it. My way or the highway. 

They are blaming the border crisis on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and are close to having enough votes to impeach him.

Biden has already imposed serious restrictions on asylum seekers, kept some of Trump’s policies, and signaled he is ready to consider other restrictions he previously opposed. He’s already running into opposition from his party’s progressive wing, immigrant rights activists, and civil rights groups. Last year, the US deported more than 142,000 immigrants, nearly double the preceding year.

NOT EVERYONE sees the large influx of immigrants as a problem. Many economists, business leaders, and even the Federal Reserve disagree. Unlike Trump and many Republicans who want to see the border closed, they see immigration as necessary and welcome.

“American policymakers need to wake up to a new reality: The country is running out of workers, and immigration must be part of the solution,” labor policy experts Johannes Lang And Zuzana Cepla write in The Hill. “The US is facing a labor shortage – immigration is the solution.”

A study by FWD.US and George Mason University contends that “admitting more immigrants can help drive down inflation” by expanding the workforce.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has said the markets are “out of balance,” with the number of openings far exceeding available workers, Politico reported. That feeds inflation, he added. Unemployment nationally is near a 55-year low.

That contrasts with some Republican critics like Sen. Tom Cotton, (R-Arkansas), who say unskilled foreign workers are taking jobs away from the poorest Americans and holding wages down. Others on the Right want the government to focus on restricting entry to those with specialized skills. Most migrants work in service industry jobs, natural resources, construction, and maintenance jobs, according to the Labor Department.

Little or nothing in the way of border security and immigration will get done this year because the two parties are so polarized, and they prefer to keep these as issues to be exploited rather than problems to be solved. 

It looks like the best that one can expect to come out of the least productive Congress in recent memory is some tinkering around the edges, but nothing in the way of serious reform. They’d all rather complain than compromise.

The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and former American Israel Public Affairs Committee legislative director.