In today's Congress, an unsettling pattern can be seen. Every time it seems as if Congress is ready to finally sit down and engage in an extensive debate on reaching a long-term solution to the issues surrounding the immigration crisis, a suggestion comes that results in the debate being put off to a later date. In a country in which 13% of the population, which is approximately 43,300,000 individuals, is comprised of foreign-born people, this is a dangerous problem. With thousands of dreamers facing imminent deportation and countless others fearing the concept of being torn away from their family and lives in America, the issues concerning immigration are those of the highest urgency.
This latest display of this dangerous pattern was seen just last week from Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Last Thursday, Sen. Flake stated to the press that once the Senate begins its floor debate on immigration the following week (this week), he plans to propose a bill that would effectively allow unauthorized immigrants who have been protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to stay protected for another three years as Congress figures out what it ultimately wants to do with them and what other changes to immigration policy it wants to make.
While it is a minor relief to know that at least some sort of action is being taken in the chambers of the United States Congress, the problem is that this is not enough. Even before the floor debate has begun, members of Congress such as Sen. Flake (R-AZ), Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are seemingly assuming that Congress won't be able to reach a permanent solution.
The unfortunate matter of the fact is that Congress isn’t any closer to a bipartisan immigration deal than it was on January 22 of this year when Democrats agreed to compromise to keep the government open until February 8 in exchange for McConnell’s promise of Republicans allowing a debate on immigration. Furthermore, Congress is not all that much closer to a deal than it was on September 5th of the previous year, when the Trump administration announced that it was ending the DACA program and told Congress it had until March 5 of the following year to prevent the 690,000 unauthorized immigrants covered under DACA from losing their work permits and deportation protections in large numbers.
The truly detrimental issue that is currently crippling the modern Congress is not between who supports the creation of a bill and who doesn't but between those who understand the urgency of this matter and those who don't. With 690,000 immigrants in danger of losing their legal protections originally provided by Congress, all members of both chambers must understand the urgency and problems surrounding this problem. These are people's ways of life in danger.
While never acceptable, the elected officials of this nations must cease to exhibit traits of learned helplessness. Congress must cease to put this problem aside. For hundreds of thousands of Americans, the continuity of their very way of life depends on the way in which the public servants operate.The real immigration split in Congress isn’t on policy. It’s on urgency. Congress must accept the urgency of the matter at hand and take action imediately with no delay.
