Democrat Senators defeated the Senate GOP’s plan to preserve the Title 42 border barrier by offering a fig-leaf Title 42 plan that would have accelerated the inflow of migrants.
The amendment, prepared by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), was defeated by 87 votes to 10 votes after pro-migration groups opposed any changes to the 2023 omnibus bill. If the amendment had passed, it might have caused the entire bill to be defeated in the House.
The Democrat amendment worked because it gave political cover to nine Democrat Senators to justify their vote against the GOP Title 42 amendment. The Sinema amendment would have preserved the fig leaf of Title 42 — but also provided another $4 billion to help President Joe Biden’s pro-migration border chief quickly pull more migrants over the border, and then feed, house, and transport the migrants to the cities where they hope to take jobs.
The Democratic plan would have provided only about $1 billion to block some migrants.
The Sinema amendment said it would preserve the Title 42 barrier until a vague “proper plan” is in place.
But the administration already has an extensive plan — which is to register, house, and transport as many migrants as public opinion allows, whether or not Title 42 is operational.
The underlying 2023 omnibus already gives Cuban-born border chief Alejandro Mayorkas at least $3 billion to register, release, house, and transport migrants seeking jobs and apartments. So the Sinema amendment would have ensured that Mayorkas had $7 billion to move millions of migrants into the jobs and homes needed by Americans.
The Sinema amendment provided at least $60 million to hire lawyers to block deportations, just $200 million for ineffective and cosmetic improvements to the border wall, and a token sum of $200 million to help detect deadly drugs coming into the United States:
The federal policy of extracting migrant workers, consumers, and renters from poor countries has done enormous damage to American communities since about 1990.
It has pushed millions of Americans out of jobs and homes and into unemployment and drugs. Last year, more than 100,000 Americans died from drugs. Currently, roughly six million working-age Americans have given up looking for decent jobs amid a flood of desperate young low-wage migrants.
On December 22, the Washington Post reported from the upcountry town of Fairmont in Georgia, where factories closed down when Congress established free trade with China, and where investment dried up when Congress allowed migrant workers to flood into the coastal states.
The Post spoke with Sheila Balde, a gas station clerk:
She remembered how it felt when [Donald Trump] first came on the scene — the pickups flying Trump flags, the freshly energized conversations over morning coffee.
“It was like people woke up around here,” [gas station clerk Sheila Balde] said. “Bunch of people would go to the rallies and come back and talk. It just felt like he was for all of us. With Trump, it was like we could breathe.”
She thought about how it felt in Fairmount now. “Can’t afford groceries, can’t afford gas, heating fuel is ridiculous — us poor people are dying. We’re stifled, smothered, sinking quick,” she said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of migrants cross the border each month, and Mayorkas is using Title 42 to stop only one-third of the job-seeking migrants.