Senate Majority Sen. Mitch McConnell is blaming the shutdown on the Democrats’ enthusiasm for “illegal immigration,” suggesting that he recognizes the public’s hostility to the Democrats’ no-strings amnesty push.
“Extreme elements of their base want illegal immigration to crowd out every other priority,” McConnell said during an early morning speech (watch from 12:00) in the Senate, January 19. “Apparently, they believe the issue of illegal immigration is more important than everything else — all the government services the American people depend on.”
Voters “will see which Senators vote to shove aside veterans, military families, and vulnerable children to hold the entire country hostage until we pass an immigration bill they have not even written yet,’ McConnell continued. “This is completely unfair and uncompassionate.”
The tougher language suggests that the GOP leaders are willing to include the issue in their 2018 campaigns, despite opposition from business lobbyists and some business-first Senators in their own ranks, including Sen. Cory Gardner, who is the GOP’s campaign manager for the 2018 election.
The language complements the morning tweet from President Donald Trump, which shows the President also wants to portray the Democrats as favoring illegal immigrants.
Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer also has polling data which show the Democrats lose if the public blames the shutdown on the Democrats’ push for amnesty. The Washington Post reported January 18:
But the public view shifts if voters think the government is shuttering because of the immigration issue, particularly in five states that Trump won in 2018 by overwhelming margins and where Democratic senators face reelection in November: Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia.
In those five states, voters split the shutdown blame evenly between Trump and Democrats. That result shifts, 48 percent to 39 percent, onto Democratic shoulders if the DACA issue is what led to the shutdown.
On Friday, McConnell slammed Schumer, saying:
Madam President, the deadline to fund the government is nearly upon us. The Senate is now just hours away from an entirely avoidable government shutdown. At midnight tonight, funding for programs that millions of Americans rely on: veteran services, opioid treatment centers, death benefits for the families of the fallen soldiers, and health insurance for nine million vulnerable children would be thrown into chaos, thrown into chaos.
Last night the Senate began consideration of a bill passed by the House, which would erase all of these threats. The bill keeps the federal government open. It extends the state children’s health insurance program which provides coverage for nine million children and low-income families for six years …
This vote should be a no-brainer. and it would be except the Democratic leader has convinced his members to filibuster any funding bill that doesn’t include legislation they are demanding for people who came into the United States illegally. What has been shoe-horned into this discussion is an insistence that we deal with an illegal-immigration issue. He’s insistent that he won’t support any legislation at all for the American people, no matter how noncontroversial or how bipartisan, unless we pass a bill on illegal immigration first …
If that means shutting down the funding for veterans, military families, opioid treatment centers, and even federal grants to his home state of New York, so be it.
If it means throwing a wrench into the gears of the U.S. economy just as Americans are starting to feel the benefits of historic tax reform, so be it.
If it means failing to renew the children’s health program which the House-passed bill funded for a full six years, apparently that’s just fine with those on the other side.
Nearly every Democrat in the House made the same demand. That’s been their stated position, Nothing for hundreds of millions of Americans and no health care for nine million vulnerable children until we solve a non-imminent issue related to illegal immigration.
Madame President, to even repeat this position out loud is to see how completely ridiculous it is. Now that we’re 13 hours away from a government shutdown that Democrats would initiate and Democrats would own, the craziness of this seems to be dawning on my friend, the Democratic leader …
Now, Madam President, I wish for all of our sakes that the Democratic leader would figure out what he actually wants. I feel bad for his own members. He’s painted them into a corner.
But I especially feel bad for the American people whose government the Democrats are threatening to shut down and the nine million children whose health insurance could be thrown into jeopardy because Senate Democrats cannot get their story straight … [Voters] will see which Senators make the patriotic decision to stand up for the American people and vote for continued government funding.
Wash the video here, starting at 3:10.
Polls show that President Donald Trump’s American-first immigration policy is very popular.
For example, a December poll of likely 2018 voters shows two-to-one voter support for Trump’s pro-American immigration policies, and a lopsided four-to-one opposition against the cheap-labor, mass-immigration, economic policy pushed by bipartisan establishment-backed D.C. interest-groups.
Business groups and Democrats tout the misleading, industry-funded “Nation of Immigrants” polls which pressure Americans to say they welcome migrants, including the roughly 670,000 ‘DACA’ illegals and the roughly 3.25 million ‘dreamer’ illegals.