The GOP-led House rejected a compromise immigra🌺tion bill on Wednesday, despite a last-minute, 𝔉all-caps Twitter endorsement by President Trump — who had earlier panned the legislation as a waste of time.
The 301-121 vote again demonstrated how divided thꦏe Republican caucus was, with moderates and conservatives u๊nable to reach a consensus on a number of issues despite holding a solid 235-193 majority.
Nearly half of the GOP members opposed the legislation — an embarrassment for Trump and rebuke of House GOP leaders, who’d postponed the vote twice and proposed changes to drum up votes for a measure that seemed doomed from the start.
Even if it passed𝕴, it would have been DOA in the closely-divided Senate, where Democrats have enough votes to kill it.
With TV and social media awash with images and wails of young migrant children torn from parents, many Republicans still want to pass a narrower measure addressing those separations before Congress leaves at week’s end for its July 4 break.
Democrats voted en masse against the bill, which would have g꧋iven a shot at citizenship to hundreds of thousands of immigrant “Dreamers” brought illegꦬally to the US as children.
It would have also provided $25 billion for Trump to build his coveted wall on the border with🉐 Mexico, restrict family-based immigration and bar Homeland Security from taking migrant children from parents seized crossing ไinto the country illegally.
The ovꦡer🧜whelming vote came despite President Trump — in all caps.
“HOUSE REPUBLICANS SHOULD PASS THE STRONG BUT FAIR IMMIGRATION BILL, KNOWN AS GOODLATTE II, IN THEIR AFTERNOON VOTE TODAY, EVEN THOUGH THE DEMS WON’T LET IT PASS IN THE SENATE. PASSAGE WILL SHOW THAT WE WANT STRONG BORDERS & SECURITY WHILE THE DEMS WANT OPEN BORDERS = CRIME. WIN!” he wrote.
Trump’s views on the issue have repeatedly flip-flopped, and he twice tweeted last week that lawmakers were wasting their time on the effort because it was DOA in the Senate.
Some GOP lawmakers had become nervous about backing the p🍨ackage for fear that he might change his mind again, putting them on the wrong side o⭕f Trump backers.
The bill would finance Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico, limit legal immigration and curb the separation of migrant families.