Will Trump Kill The DACA Program? That's Entirely Up To Paul Ryan

White power without the white sheets and hoods

With Trumpanzee determined to throw a bone to the most racist and xenophobic segment of his base by killing the very popular DACA program, congressional Republicans in swing districts and districts with big Hispanic populations started to panic. If you've looked at right-wing and extremist media in the last couple of days, you've probably noticed a new bête noire: Colorado Republican Mike Coffman. His district is both swingy-- Hillary beat Trumpanzee there 50.2% to 41.3%-- and loaded with activated Hispanic voters. (CO-06's population is over 20% Latino.)

A poll released Thursday by NBC News found that 64% of Americans support DACA, while 30%-- basically the Trumpist base-- oppose it.

On January 12, Coffman introduced the BRIDGEAct (H.R. 496), whose 25 co-sponsors include Republicans Carlos Curbelo (FL), Jeff Denham (CA), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL), Dan Newhouse (WA), Dave Reichert (WA), David Valadao (CA), Don Bacon (NE), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Dan Donovan (NY), John Faso (NY), Chris Stewart (UT) and Fred Upton (MI). Paul Ryan had it immediately referred to the House Judiciary Committee which is chaired by virulent and notorious racist Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and in February Goodlatte assigned itto Raul Labrador's Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, where racist subcommittee members Lamar Smith (R-TX), Steve King (R-IA) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) have been able to bottle it up and prevent any action at all, despite strenuous efforts by Democrats on the subcommittee-- Zoe Lofgren (CA), Luis Gutierrez (IL), Pramila Jayapal (WA), Sheila Jackson Lee (TX) and David Cicilline (RI)-- to move the bill to a House vote. Gutierrez, Lofgren and Jayapal are co-sponsors of Coffman's bill.

Breitbart describes Coffman as "a strong supporter of Obama’s DACA amnesty for younger illegals, partly because the GOP and the state’s business and agriculture establishments have long encouraged large-scale immigration of Latino workers in Colorado. Those legal and illegal immigrants are a growing political force, and many-- plus their children-- are now voting for Democrats. Their votes ensured that Coffman’s Sixth District was won by President Barack Obama in 2012 and by Hillary Clinton in 2016."

Coffman is trying to create a congressional quasi-amnesty for more than 800,000 illegal immigrants now protected by former President Barack Obama’s DACA amnesty.

He is trying to collect signatures from 218 Democratic and Republican members for a “discharge petition,” which would ensure his amnesty bill will get a debate and a vote in the House.

Discharge petitions rarely work, in part, because both parties’ leaders use their power to ensure that ordinary members cannot collect the 218 votes to take temporary control of the floor schedule.

...Coffman says he wants a vote on his “Bridge Act,” which would provide immediate help to roughly 800,000 illegals who were brought into the United States as minors by their parents. His quasi-amnesty would grant a work permit and protection from deportation to qualifying illegals if they have a GED or better, are aged 18 to 36, and have not committed major crimes.  The bill’s provisions create a second-class status for the illegals because it would provide them with Green Cards or a track to citizenship.

Researchers say another 1 million illegals could qualify for the DACA amnesty when they are adults and if they graduate from high school.

So who is Coffman trying to circumvent with his discharge petition? Ostensibly Goodlatte but, in reality, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy, who have ordered the complacent Goodlatte to bottle up the bill and keep it from being voted on. Ryan fears that the bill will pass, something that would put Trumpanzee into a frenzy of attacks on House Republicans, and he also fears that many of his members will be put into the awkward position of taking a stand that either paints them as racists or as targets for the hard core Trumpists in their districts.

And, like clockwork, Ryan is immediately attacked by the neo-Nazi website that backs Trump

This is a test of Ryan's poor leadership abilities--as well as his own soft core bigotry. [Randy quote]

If all 194 House Democrats support Coffman's discharge petition, he would still need 24 Republicans willing to sign on, with Ryan and McCarthy-- not to mention the hardcore racists from Judiciary like Goodlatte, Lamar Smith and Steve King-- actively working against it. As Jonathan Bernstein explained for Bloomberg readers yesterday, "Ryan could still try to substitute a watered-down measure to keep control of the House agenda for himself and his party while allowing those who want to cast a symbolic vote for DACA to do so. Or at least, that's what speakers have typically done. Ryan, however, has a pattern of protecting himself at the expense of his party. So while I am not making any predictions, I could imagine Ryan just allowing a discharge petition to succeed. Ryan could then tell anti-immigration hardliners that he had done everything possible to stop it, and that it wasn't his fault the thing reached the floor and passed despite his opposition. And, having passed the House, the measure would then put pressure on Mitch McConnell and other Republican Senators to move it further. Would Ryan really sacrifice the influence of the speaker and the party caucus just to avoid any blame for a DACA bill passing? We can't know yet, but it sure would fit the pattern that he established on health care."