On Monday’s “CNN NewsNight,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) stated that he opposes the Senate border bill because it doesn’t provide any relief to anyone in the country illegally, and also criticized Republicans for rejecting the deal and saying they need more time to get a better bill and “walking away from” negotiations that he thinks shouldn’t have taken place to begin with.
Padilla said, “[A]s written, it’s not something that I can support, both for reasons of what’s in the package, like Trump-era policies of regular border closures, lack of due process, those sorts of things, which we know just didn’t work, the numbers don’t lie, but also for what’s not in the bill. Historically, we’ve found some border enforcement proposals with some legal pathways, for example, not a single DREAMer will benefit or will receive relief through this measure, not a single farmworker or other essential worker will have relief in this measure. So, there’s a lot to not like about what’s in it, and a lot to be concerned about what’s lacking.”
Later, he stated that while fixing the immigration system is a “top priority” of his, “I think the choice is just not this versus nothing, the choice is really is this something that’s going to help the situation, or is this going to make the problem worse? If the Trump administration experience with Title 42 is any indicator, this could create more chaos at the border and make the problem worse, not better.”
He then added, “It’s time [for] Republicans to decide when to get serious about this, but they can’t have it both ways, Abby. They can’t say, for example, this is urgent, we need to act, and then say, we need more time and let’s wait until November, because that’s what Donald Trump wants them to do. … So, the Republicans have got to figure out if they’re serious, if we’re truly going to take advantage of this narrow window of time to do something soon.”
Padilla further said, “Look, Republicans are the reason that we’re here to begin with. The only reason we are where we are is because Republicans insisted on tying aid to Ukraine to changing what’s happening at the border. We should never have been here to begin with. We should have advanced aid to Ukraine a long time ago, but they wanted to engage in a border negotiation, if you will, and after months of participating in it, if they’re walking away from it, again, the question is on them, when are they going to get serious? We know what solutions will work, let’s not go back to a Trump playbook that was shown to fail.”
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