Back in February, the Senate voted down a supposedly “bipartisan” and “compromise” border bill co-sponsored by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz. Though in 2022, Vice President Kamala Harris told Chuck Todd of Meet the Press “the border is secure,” she has promised to support this bill’s return in Congress. As the Senate deal may be back in play, it’s worth remembering why it failed to pass the last time.
The mainstream media party line on the Senate border deal is that everyone—Democrats, the White House, and many Republicans—was on board with the deal until former President Donald Trump made a few phone calls and killed it, so he could use the border crisis as an election issue.
In fact, very few Republicans ever supported it, for good reason. Members of Congress with any knowledge of immigration issues swiftly reached the…