Harry Reid has either just gotten smarter or stupider and only the Senate vote on the Defense authorization bill will tell. That’s because Reid has attached two “ultimatums” to what was previously less controversial, “support our troops” legislation by attaching the repeal of “don’t ask don’t tell” and the DREAM act to defense budget bill. Repealing the military’s current policy on homosexuals openly serving is probably an easier vote-getter than the anmesty-for-children-of-illegals DREAM act, especially given the fact that the Senate vote doesn’t automatically change the military’s policy on gays. “Even if Reid does manage to wrangle enough votes for the repeal, the law would not yet be fully abolished — President Obama would still have to certify a Pentagon review of a possible repeal, which is not due until December.”
The amendment offering children of the undocumented a path to legal residency through higher education or military service is a whole other ball of wax. The DREAM act has been battered about for years and would have been part of comprehensive immigration reform had the McCain-Kennedy legislation passed in 2007. Democrats love the DREAM narrative of giving kids who were brought to the US by their parents the “opportunity” to become citizens by getting a college education (“This amendment will ensure that millions of children who grow up as Americans will be able to get the education they need to contribute to our economy,” Reid in a statement) and many moderate Republicans support the measure by arguing that kids of illegals shouldn’t be punished for their parents’ sins.
Thing is, the DREAM act should be part of comprehensive immigration reform, which is what Democrats and President Obama have been saying they wanted all year. But comprehensive reform isn’t going anywhere in the House or the Senate, so Reid, who needs every vote he can muster in his reelection fight with Republican Sharron Angle, has decided to curry favor with Latino voters by attaching DREAM to an unrelated bill.
In response, the usual suspects are taking their usual sides. Those who favor laxer immigration policy are for Reid’s maneuver: “By bringing the long-overdue DREAM Act to a vote, Senator Reid has shown that he agrees with 70 percent of Americans who want to provide undocumented young men and women a chance to apply their full potential to making our country a better place to live,” said Tyler Moran with the National Immigration Law Center.
And those who want tougher enforcement of current immigration laws are seriously upset: “At a time when our country is at war and our troops are fighting and dying in Afghanistan, the use of a bill to authorize funding for our military to benefit illegal aliens exemplifies why the American public has grown contemptuous of the way today’s Washington operates,” stated Dan Stein, president of Federation for American Immigration Reform.
The Defense Authorization bill is supposed to be voted on next week and then we’ll see whether Reid gets the credit for supporting illegal immigrants or whether he gets the blame for killing a necessary troop funding bill with unrelated political maneuvering.