Sinema ally calls House's racist immigration bill 'a good first step'

The House passed its racist and xenophobic border security bill Thursday in a 219-213 vote after a great deal of backroom dealing between leadership and the Freedom Caucus hardliners—the kind of backroom dealing House Speaker Kevin McCarthy promised wouldn’t happen on his watch. Promises, promises. This was the bill that Majority Leader Steve Scalise promised would happen in the first two weeks of this Congress. Months of intense infighting delayed its passage, and ensured that it would be so extreme that even Senate Republicans won’t touch it.

It’s not so extreme, however, that some in the Senate aren’t going to try to use it to kickstart a “bipartisan” bill. That would be Arizona’s newly-declared independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who will take any opportunity to undermine Democrats. She’s been grand-standing on the end of Title 42, the pandemic-related policy that’s been in place since March 2020, which expires Thursday with the official end of the government’s pandemic emergency. The policy allowed the U.S. to deny asylum and migration claims for public health reasons, and Sinema and Republican Thom Tillis of North Carolina have been shopping legislation that would extend Title 42 for two more years.

Sinema is attempting to keep this Trump-era policy, authored by white supremacist Stephen Miller, alive. It’s worth remembering this policy wasn’t about public health. The Centers for Disease Control were opposed to it, didn’t believe public health needs justified it, and were forced to implement it by the Trump White House. That’s what Sinema is pushing now, and it’s what a handful of Senate Democrats are falling for.