House Rejects Goodlatte Immigration Bill, Postpones Vote On Agreement Amid Family Separations Crisis

On Thursday, the House of Representatives rejected a hard-line immigration proposal, and top Republicans postponed a vote on an agreement about the contentious issue.

Congress Rejects Hard-Line Immigration Bill

According to several reports, a vote for a compromise on immigration was scheduled to be held on Thursday night. This plan would have helped give young undocumented immigrants — so-called “Dreamers” who came to the U.S. as children — a pathway to citizenship while also stopping the separation of migrant families at the border, an issue that has dominated headlines in recent weeks. Funding for the border wall aggressively pushed by President Donald Trump would also have been part of this proposal, however.

The New York Times reported that Republican leaders initially “pushed the vote to Friday” and then again to next week. This was the latest example of moderate and hard-line conservatives failing to reach a deal on immigration, and particularly with regards to the Barack Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that expired in March. The moderates even tried to get a so-called “discharge petition” passed to hasten a vote on immigration, but fell two signatures short of the number required to force the vote this month.

Trump has repeatedly blamed Democrats for his administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy on crossing the border illegally — which is a federal misdemeanor — and called it “their law.” Since the White House started heavily enforcing the law, more than 2,000 immigrant children have been separated from their parents and kept in detention centers and shelters with cages in Texas. After the president and several of his administration’s top officials like Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen drew severe criticism for the policy, Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to end the separations.

Trump claimed that no other president had resolved this immigration issue, which he claimed had been plaguing the country for more than “60 years.”

The hard-line immigration bill is named after its top sponsor, Republican Rep. Robert Goodlatte of Virginia. Goodlatte is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

The bill did not pass after a 193 to 231 vote. In total, 41 Republicans opposed the legislation.

Among the things the Goodlatte bill would have ensured were a crackdown on sanctuary cities and “requiring employers to use an internet-based system called E-Verify to confirm that they are hiring legal workers,” according to the Times. The legislation also would have given DACA recipients a chance at a three-year renewable legal status.

Hard-line conservatives have reportedly criticized the compromise bill, saying it is a form of “amnesty” for young illegal immigrants.

In another tweet, Trump accused Democrats of obstructing the immigration vote and called on majority-holding Republicans to eliminate the filibuster rule.

The criticism is odd given that the filibuster rule applies only in the Senate and not the House.