Schumer rejected McConnell’s calls for bipartisan legislation, citing the number of “obstacles” in the way of a legislative fix, and the useless process the Senate cycled through after Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program last year.
“When the president can do it with his own pen, [legislation] makes no sense,” he said, ticking off the conditions legislation would have to meet. “[House Speaker Paul] Ryan. The president signing it. Attaching it to things that are unacceptable. Legislation is not the way to go here when it’s so easy for the president to sign it. It’s an excuse.”
When a reporter asked if they would be willing to act if this separation crisis lingered for months longer, Schumer said, “let’s hope we never get to that.”
“How many times has immigration legislation passed in this Congress? How many times? Zero,” he said. “It’s an excuse by our Republican colleagues who feel the heat, don’t want to attack the president, even though they know legislation will take a very long time and is unlikely to happen.”
Schumer would probably believe a legislative fix was in order if Trump and the Republicans came out in favor of a bill, authored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, that all Senate Democrats support, to end family separation. That bill, which hawkish Republican Sen. Tom Cotton described Tuesday as “codifying” the “catch-and-release” practice they’re seeking to end, is mostly a decoy for Democrats to rally around. What’s new for Senate Democratic leaders is this stance that they’re unwilling to negotiate on a real, bipartisan bill with a chance of moving.
That position carries an obvious risk, so it’s surprising to see the typically risk-averse Senate Democratic conference staking it out. Republicans can try to deflect blame onto Democrats for not doing anything to solve the problem.