The Great Democratic Cave on Border Enforcement
Trump won much more than the Democrats did.
Congressional Republicans and Democrats have apparently cut a deal on funding border enforcement. So unless President Trump—who says
he's "unhappy" with the terms—walks away and snatches defeat from the jaws of victory, a government shutdown come Friday is not in the cards. However, the question is whether after all of the drama of the last few months, did Democrats even remotely advance the cause of a sane and humane immigration enforcement policy?
Liberal commentators would have you believe that they did because Trump didn't get the $5 billion-plus he was demanding for his border "barrier." That may be right, but the fact of the matter is that he got something and the Democrats got nothing at all, as I note in my latest column at The Week.
The sticking point that nearly derailed the talks over the weekend concerned funding for detention beds to house unauthorized immigrants picked up at the border and rounded up from the interior. Given that Trump has illegally diverted funds for this end, one would have thought the Democrats would use the funding fight to hold the line and insist on starving the ICE beast.
Think again.
So terrified were the Democrats about being blamed for the next shutdown, that they approved pretty much the same levels of detention bed funding as the Republican-controlled Congress did last year.
Nor was it their only capitulation.
Go here to read about the Democrats' other surrenders, including the fact that they didn't even bring up the issue of legalizing Dreamers. They played on Trump's turf and came away empty.