House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on Monday that she has “zero tolerance” for the GOP-backed immigration bills that President Donald Trump and House Republicans discussed on Tuesday.
Pelosi made her remarks after visiting a detention center in San Diego, and they represent the sentiments of leading Democrats and amnesty advocates on the left who have expressed no interest whatsoever in recent days to giving a chance to any immigration legislation that a majority of Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, will support.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), for instance, said on Tuesday that “legislation is not the way to go” when asked about how to find a solution for illegal immigrant children detained at the border.
“There are so many obstacles to legislation and when the president can do it with his own pen, it makes no sense,” Schumer reportedly said. “Legislation is not the way to go here when it’s so easy for the president to sign it.”
United We Dream, one of the most prominent pro-amnesty groups that helped organized a protest outside a detention center in Texas over the weekend, has also blasted the GOP immigration bills backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA).
As Breitbart News has noted, Ryan’s bill would give amnesty to at least 1.8 million so-called Dreamers, which is “nearly three times the size of President Obama’s original Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.” The bill has the potential, as Breitbart News reported, to grant amnesty to as many as 3.5 million illegal immigrants.
But Greisa Martinez, of United We Dream, blasted Ryan’s bill as the “Trump plan 2.0” and said the group will pressure Democrats to reject any bill that does not have a “clean Dream Act” to give a pathway to citizenship for every Dreamer and protections for their parents who brought them to the country illegally. Martinez also said she opposes bills that pump billions of dollars into “racist” enforcement agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Trump, who said he intends to make some changes to Ryan’s legislation, has been adamant that “Democrats are the problem” when it comes to finding an immigration solution.
“Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13,” Trump tweeted. “They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!”
Trump also asked, “Why don’t the Democrats give us the votes to fix the world’s worst immigration laws?”