Senate ‘Gang of Six’ Negotiates Republican Giveaway on Migration

Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico are lined up for proc
AP Photo/Eric Gay
Neil Munro

Roughly 30 Republican senators are backing the House’s H.R.2 migration stabilization bill — but a gang of six senators, including three Republicans, are drafting a giveaway “compromise” bill.

“H.R.2 should be the focus,” said a policy analyst who favors pro-American migration laws, adding:

There’s no reason to preemptively surrender good border security legislation before we’re forced to negotiate [with the House]. What the Senators who are supporting that [compromise] package are doing essentially is preemptively surrendering, preemptively giving away very important pieces of H.R. 2 before they’re even being forced to do so.

“They’re negotiating with themselves” instead of with Democrats, he added.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and James Lankford (R-OK), are working with three Democrats to write a pretend compromise in the end-of-year budget battles over funding for Israel, Ukraine, and President Joe Biden’s border security agency, he said, adding that their plan is “not going do anything of any substance.”

The compromise legislation will likely be touted by Democrats and their media allies in January as they try to create a political stampede that will overpower Republicans’ popular demands for substantial policy change to migration laws, he said.

“Lankford is now working to turn a one-page summary of the party’s border plan into legislation,” Politico reported.

Behind closed doors, additional Republican senators are likely cooperating with the group of three.

The three Democrat-aligned senators in the group are Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO).

In 2013, Bennet joined with Graham to push the failed 2013 “Gang of Eight” amnesty that would have cut Americans’ wages for a decade or more.

The evidence so far is that the Gang of Six compromise includes few substantial changes in current laws, the immigration analyst said. It also appears to leave intact many of the alternative loopholes that Biden’s border deputies will use to keep importing millions of poor, desperate, indebted, and compliant migrants, he said.

But the 3o-plus cosponsors on the Senate’s version of the House bill H.R. 2 may block the stampede planned by the “Gang of Six.”

The Senate version of H.R.2 is S.2824, titled “Secure the Border Act of 2023.” It was introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). It includes most major stabilization measures sought by Republican-aligned experts and the public.

The H.R.2 bill is being pushed by nearly all of the GOP House caucus, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). “We’re going to force the issue — and people want us to,” Johnson said.

Johnson is in a good position to get immigration concessions from Democrats because President Joe Biden needs Republican approval for the funding that he wants to give to Israel and Ukraine.

Biden also needs a funding deal to help patch over the growing and unpopular cost of moving southern migrants into the jobs and homes needed by voters in blue cities, including New York and Chicago.

Also, Democrats are realizing that Biden’s reckless migration policy is deeply unpopular nationwide.

The 32 senators backing the stabilization bill include the Republicans’ mainstream wing, such as Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Josh Hawley (S-MO), Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).

The bill is also backed by Republican establishment-linked leadership, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. John Thune (R-SD), and even Graham, who was a leader of the 2013 “Gang of Eight” amnesty.

The bill is also backed by Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND), who drafted a last-minute, fake border-security compromise in 2013 that allowed the Gang of Eight’s amnesty bill to pass through the Senate.

The Republican bill is also backed by Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND). He is also pushing two other bills — including the Eagle Act — to allow a massive inflow of foreign workers for white-collar jobs and healthcare jobs that would otherwise go to North Dakota’s college graduates. One of his bills is backed by seven other Republican senators.

It is not clear how many of the 32 senators who support the stabilization bill have signed on for PR purposes. But at least two — Graham and Tillis — are working with Lankford and the Democrats on the compromise giveaway.

Meanwhile, multiple Democrat senators are denouncing any compromise related to asylum and other doorways, and various Latino groups claim to be boycotting the negotiations.

“We are alarmed and deeply concerned that key talks in Congress about border policies and the treatment of humanitarian migrants are happening without a single Hispanic lawmaker or ally in the room,” said Janet Murguía, president of UnidosUS told the Hill.

Biden’s economic policy of mass migration destabilizes the middle class and the economy by cutting wages, raising inflation, and spiking rents. It also crowds government aid programs, shrinks corporate investment in productivity, and diverts wages and jobs from Heartland states to coastal states and cities, such as New York.

The inflow is also spiking civic chaos, such as pro-Hamas marches and left-wing antisemitism.

But Biden’s policy is good for investors, banks, and CEOs who prefer low-cost, low-wage immigration because it helps them profit from low-productivity companies and their associated workforce of apartment-sharing, rent-spiking renters, and welfare-aided consumers.

The economic and civic damage is persuading more ordinary Americans to view migration as more of a burden than a benefit.

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