July 12, 2013

How the Failure of Immigration Reform Might Pave the Way for Filibuster Reform

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Ed Kilgore makes a point today about immigration reform and “enforcement first” that deserves more attention:

What hasn’t much been discussed is the fact that when it comes to border enforcement, the Obama administration has actually been very, very hawkish, precisely because it was considered necessary to make it possible for Republicans to support comprehensive reform.

….This deportation record has gotten extensive coverage in Spanish-language media, and was hardly a secret to anyone….There’s a [] lesson for the White House in this story: taking actions thought to be popular with conservatives in order to create good will among congressional Republicans is rarely a good idea. They’ll either ignore the evidence or come up with some other reason to oppose the hated Obama.

Yep. Immigration from Mexico is way down from its peak, and that’s partly due to the lousy economy. But it’s also due to Obama’s dedication to continuing—and even beefing up—the tougher immigration enforcement started under President Bush: more border patrol officers, continued building of the fence, harsh deportation policies, and continued improvement of the E-Verify program that employers use to check the legal status of new hires. All of these things have annoyed liberals (or worse) and, as Ed says, were done primarily to set up conditions that would allow Republicans to support immigration reform. But it sure looks as if it didn’t do any good.

This is just another example of why Harry Reid might actually go through with filibuster reform this year: there’s simply nothing that Democrats can do anymore to get even the most modest cooperation from Republicans. The GOP is now so uniformly obstructionist that, paradoxically, they have no political leverage left. Ezra Klein provides the play-by-play:

Consider the record. Republicans abandoned a budget deal in favor of the mess that is sequestration. Gun control failed. Student loan rates doubled. Republicans are promising another debt-ceiling showdown. And now immigration looks unlikely to make it through the House. What exactly is left that Democrats want to get done and Republicans are likely to work with them to finish?

Good question. Earlier this year there was lots of talk about Obama’s need to reach out and do more schmoozing, or perhaps his need to make sure that Republicans actually knew what he was offering. That stuff can’t hurt, but it sure doesn’t look like it did any good, either. The modern Republican Party just doesn’t care. Their base judges them almost solely by their opposition to whatever Obama wants, so that’s what they give them. The nuclear option and its cousins are about all that Obama and the Democratic Party have left.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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