Pelosi Removes Draconian Homeland Security Funding Provisions from Bill

NumbersUSA says she blinked.

By the way, if you don’t follow NumbersUSA, you should because they do cover the often tedious goings-on on Capitol Hill.  I’m posting this bit of news here because I want to refer to it in a post at RRW shortly.

Here is what Numbers reported in an e-mail last night.  See why she pulled the funding measure.

Pelosi Blinks

Good news! House Democrats have pulled funding for the Department of Homeland Security from a spending bill. This is good news because Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee planned to use Homeland Security funding to impose extremist immigration provisions.

Reportedly, Democrats from vulnerable districts didn’t want to have to defend the extremist, immigration-related provisions contained in the bill.

I list those provisions below, so you can see just how extreme they are. These vulnerable Democrats from more moderate districts balked because they knew we would be hammering them if they went ahead!

[….]

…we saw that even she just might temper the radicalism of some of her more extreme colleagues.

Here are some of the worst provisions of the bill that was pulled from consideration:

1) Would have limited ICE detention beds to 10,000, compared to a recent high of 55,000.

2) Would have prohibited detention of families, all but guaranteeing their release and encouraging future surges of family units at the border.

3) Would have prohibited the removal of aliens who have been given Temporary Protected Status but have since lost it.

4) Would have exposed more blue-collar jobs to foreign worker competition and called for an increase in temporary work visas, despite the tens of millions of Americans looking for work.

5) Would have drastically cut funding for immigration enforcement, and prohibited reallocation of funding.

In essence, the bill would have made it take far longer to remove illegal aliens, but at the same time, it would gravely restrict holding them. In short, the bill would have required something close to open borders.

[….]

Politico, the Capitol Hill newspaper, quoted a congressional staffer explaining why the bill was pulled:

“Front-line members raised serious concerns that the Homeland bill was a tough vote in swing districts because of its progressive provisions. At the end of the day, front-liners are our majority makers and there is no reason to force them to take a tough vote.”

Interesting admission about “front-line members.”

Are you in a district with a vulnerable Democrat?  If so, find out where he/she stands on NumbersUSA’s immigration scorecard and exploit the bad scores you find there.