The White House Is Asking Senators to Withdraw Their Sponsorship of Bipartisan Immigration Bill

The bill is the only one that appears to have any chance of passing, but a White House official calls it “outrageous” and “spectacularly poorly drafted.”

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The Trump administration is asking senators to withdraw their sponsorship of a bipartisan immigration bill, a White House official told reporters on Thursday.

The official, who asked not to be named, said the bill is “so spectacularly poorly drafted” that the White House is “officially asking the sponsors of the bill to withdraw their sponsorship, allowing for the possibility that they were simply grievously misinformed about the bill’s outrageous contents.” The comments came an hour after the White House released a statement threatening to veto the bill. 

As Mother Jones has written, the bipartisan measure would fund President Donald Trump’s border wall in exchange for providing a path to citizenship for Dreamers—undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. It was introduced by Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Angus King (I-Maine), along with seven additional Republicans and seven Democrats. It faces tough odds of getting the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, but is the only bill that currently appears to have a chance of passing. The administration favors a hardline approach that would severely curtail legal immigration.

A different administration official told reporters on Thursday, “We believe it is likely and possible, in the near future, you will see human smugglers throughout Central America circulating the Schumer-Rounds-Collins press release to drum up business.”

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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.

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