Dem
53
Ties
2
GOP
45
Multiple Republican senators have now come to the conclusion that Donald Trump's immigration policy has become a big problem for them, especially with Latino and suburban voters. Soon-to-be-former Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said: "I always thought that this idea of mass deportations sent the wrong message." If the Senator always thought this, one might ask why he never mentioned it until it began hurting Republicans at the ballot box.
Maybe Cornyn's new discovery of something he always knew is due to a September Fox poll that shows 53% of the voters think that Trump's way of enforcing immigration laws has gone too far. Among those who don't like the deportation policy, 45% think the government is using too much force while 49% think the wrong people are being deported. It is not clear who they think the right people are. White people? Only criminals? The entire starting lineup of the Chicago Bears? Hmmm... now we might be on to something. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), who is up in November, is in the "only criminals" camp. He thinks that only people who have violated some law other than immigration law should be deported. Of course, if that is the plan, then there is no room for "dramatic" action over and above what previous administrations have done. Every administration tries to deport criminals, and they do so as quickly as those criminals can be found.
Soon-to-be-former Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said: "I would rather have 100 illegally present people go free than have that innocent person caught. Tillis probably saw the ProPublica investigation that has found 506 cases in which ICE arrested U.S. citizens for deportation. The link shows videos of some of the arrests. The people are all yelling: "I'm a U.S. citizen," but instead of stopping and saying: "Prove it," the agents just continue handcuffing the people and forcing them into vans. The agents clearly care not a whit if the person they are arresting is a U.S. citizen or not. In at least one case, when the arrestee said he was a U.S. citizen, the agent said: "I don't care." ProPublica also found:
It is a long report, with many details and many videos of detentions.
Soon-to-be-former Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) is also disturbed. She said: "Is there a way that President Trump could look at these individuals and say, 'OK, we'll allow you to stay but we're going to tax you more...' as a way of paying a fine because you broke the law entering the country?"
Or maybe the Republican senators saw the NBC News/Telemundo poll of 800 Latino voters that showed that only 27% approved of Trump while 69% did not. Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV), who comes from one of the Trumpiest states in the country, said: "Before you know it, you get people that get carried away in their job and whatever it may be, and all of a sudden, then you're dragging people away that have lived on your street corner for 15 years, and I don't know that we need to be doing that stuff." It is amazing that all it takes is an election (and a handful of polls) for senators to discover their true views on immigration.
But while some Republican senators are unhappy with Trump, some House members are unhappy with the Republican senators. In particular, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) is now saying out loud what many House Republicans actually think about their colleagues at the other end of the Capitol. Emmer is angry that the Senate can't pass bills the House sends over. He said: "Don't keep telling me 'Don't have the votes. Don't have the votes.' You suck." A staffer of a Republican senator responded that what would suck is losing the majority and Emmer should aim his fire at Democrats, not Republicans. Emmer believes Senate Republicans should abolish the filibuster so they can pass the bills the House sends them, but Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), who is keenly aware that the chances of his caucus being in the minority on Jan. 3 are roughly 50-50, has no interest whatsoever in doing that. (V)