What is Congress for? It’s a serious question, and one we ask now in context of the larger immigration debate that has been unfurling across the country for the past few years.
In route to getting to the purpose of a Congress, let’s do a short recap. Hundreds of thousands of so-called Dreamers have been left in limbo in regard to their status. There has been a directive by the attorney general on how to deal with asylum seekers. And the administration is implemented a policy that’s separating parents from their children if caught crossing the border illegally.
We won’t pretend that these issues are easy in today’s politics. In fact, all of them are so studded with thorns that there has been a reluctance to push actionable legislation. But there is now a sliver of hope that action just might be forthcoming from Congress.
Next week, House Speaker Paul Ryan has promised to hold two votes on immigration bills. He made that promise to quell a rebellion among 23 members of his caucus who were nearly successful in forcing an up-or-down vote on a bill to extend legal protection, and likely a path to citizenship, to the Dreamers.
We understand that the bills coming up for a vote have something akin to a snow ball’s chance in Hades, but one never knows what can happen if cooler heads prevail. In any case, we encourage the Speaker to make good on his promise to hold the votes because, at this point, it is important to make our lawmakers cast recorded votes so we can see where they stand.
In a sense, the most pressing issue is the status of the Dreamers. We’ve supported creating a process to allow them to stay for a host of reasons, including the fact that they weren’t the ones who made the decision to come here illegally (their parents did) and this is the only country most of them know.
But the importance of getting lawmakers on the record should not be overlooked.
The administration, under a new zero-tolerance policy, is now charging every adult who crosses the border illegally with a federal crime. The result is that as parents deal with that charge, their children are taken away and dropped into a federal system that is already overstretched.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recently specified how asylum seekers should be handled. He offered the clarity Congress might have in saying, for example, that most people fleeing gang violence won’t qualify for asylum.
Writing clearer rules and governing a system that handles the hard cases of humanity will always be tough. But then the job of Congress is to devise policies that can handle tough issues within the bounds of the Constitution and that adhere to the country’s values. And to that end, we’d like to know where members of Congress stand on asylum, on leaving Dreamers in limbo and on separating children from their parents.
— The Dallas Morning News
