For decades, Congress repeatedly failed to address immigration dysfunction

For nearly a quarter century, as successive waves of migrants have tried to enter and work in the United States, presidents have called on Congress to address gaps in an immigration system that almost everyone agrees is broken. is.

But year after year, congressional efforts to reach a broad bipartisan agreement — one that would strengthen border security measures while increasing opportunities for people to immigrate to the United States in an orderly and lawful manner — have broken under the pressure of the political forces.

Immigration has proven to be a powerful tool for political messaging, particularly for Republicans, who have rallied voters behind campaigns to close the border with Mexico — denouncing anything but tight security proposals like amnesty. And Democrats have long opposed border security initiatives without measures to grant legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants residing in the United States and expand immigration in the future.

While many legislators have tried to close the gap, not once in the 21st century has a comprehensive immigration bill been sent to the office of the president.

The legacy of that passivity can be seen in factories and farms, where undocumented migrants work grueling jobs for low wages; in the towering backlog of asylum cases pending before an immigration judge; in the enrichment of cartels smuggling migrants and drugs to the US-Mexico border; and in the uncertainty at the border following this week’s passage of entry restrictions during the pandemic era.

As lawmakers try again to crack down on immigration, here’s a look at how and why previous attempts in Congress failed.

2006: The McCain-Kennedy bill passes, but dies in the House.

On May 25, 2006, the Republican-led Senate passed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 by a vote of 62 to 36. Twenty-three Republicans — including Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, the current Minority Leader — supported the bill, along with all but four Democrats and one independent. The Republican-led House never took it up.

What was suggested: The bill was based on a compromise between Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. Their framework linked border security measures that Republicans called for — such as fencing, radar and aerial surveillance tools, and an influx of personnel — with facilities championed by Democrats that offered millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States a way to lose citizenship. and the creation of a guest worker program.

Why it didn’t work: Despite opposition from some leading Republicans, the bill garnered enough support to pass the Senate after aggressive push from President George W. Bush, who had campaigned to overhaul the immigration system and devoted a prime-time Oval Office speech to promoting of the bill the week before the vote. It also had the support of major business groups and some powerful unions.

But the more conservative House, which passed a bill in late 2005 that placed strict restrictions on immigration and criminalized illegal entry — sparking widespread national protests — never adopted it, effectively killing it. Republicans instead brought forward a measure that dealt only with border security called the Secure Fence Act, which both the House and Senate passed with veto-proof majorities. Bush signed it two weeks before the 2006 midterm elections.

2007: The Senate’s “Gang of 12” bill falls flat.

After congressional Republicans suffered heavy defeats in the 2006 midterm elections, new Democratic majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives tried to crack down on immigration again. But the new bill failed to clear a series of procedural hurdles in the Senate in June 2007 and failed to receive a final vote in either chamber.

What was suggested: The 2007 bill followed the approach of last year’s proposal, but with a “trigger” that makes the legal status of undocumented immigrants contingent on meeting a series of border security benchmarks. The bill also proposed granting legal status based on a points system that scored immigrants based on vocational skills, educational attainment, family ties and English proficiency.

Why it didn’t work: The coalition of senators that crafted the legislation, which came to be known as the Gang of 12, represented the broadest bipartisan coalition yet to join forces for an immigration compromise. But the bill met stubborn opposition from both sides and eventually collapsed.

Senator Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican who, as President Donald J. Trump’s attorney general, would have a zero-tolerance policy for illegal border crossings, led a conservative uprising against the bill, denouncing it as an amnesty. At the same time, pro-labor Democrats objected to the extensive temporary guest worker programs, while others in the party scrutinized the points system to prioritize labor skills over family ties.

2010: Democrats fail to pass the DREAM Act.

In December 2010, Democratic congressional leaders, on the verge of losing control of the House, voted on the DREAM Act: legislation aimed at making undocumented migrants brought to the country as children, often called “Dreamers called, the chance to become legal. status. The House passed the bill by a vote of 216 to 198, with eight Republicans in favor and 38 Democrats against. Ten days later, the Democrat-led Senate fell five votes short of breaking a filibuster that blocked him from voting.

What was suggested: The legislation was designed to allow Dreamers to become legal residents and possibly U.S. citizens, provided they met certain conditions. Eligible migrants must have served at least two years in the military, pass a criminal background, and be under the age of 30. The legislation, first introduced in 2001, was part of both the 2006 and 2007 comprehensive immigration laws.

Why it didn’t work: Conservative Republicans in the Senate campaigned against the bill as an amnesty, persuading all but three colleagues to oppose it. But the Democrats also failed to support their party’s legislation. Five moderate Democrats declined to support the bill because it did not include a broader immigration plan — the five votes they needed to clear the Senate’s 60-vote procedural hurdle and allow it to pass.

2013: A Senate mob succeeds, but the House digs in.

After the 2012 presidential election and a Republican autopsy that concluded the party needed to change its hardline stance on immigration, momentum was building for a compromise bill. On June 27, 2013, the Senate passed a compromise immigration bill that addresses both border security and expanded immigration routes by a vote of 68 to 32, with 14 Republicans on board. But the GOP-led House never acted on it.

What was suggested: A “Gang of Eight” group of senators — four Democrats and four Republicans — revived the idea of ​​combining border security measures with expanded immigration options, subject to meeting border security trigger thresholds. The bill called for universal adoption of the employment eligibility system, known as E-Verify, to make it more difficult to hire undocumented workers and to place most of the country’s undocumented immigrants at a 13-year-old age. year road to citizenship. It would have awarded visas based on a points system, about 50 percent based on vocational skills, and including programs for temporary guest workers.

Why it didn’t work: The bill easily passed the Senate, but was effectively dead upon arrival in the increasingly right-wing House. Ohio Republican Speaker John Boehner repeatedly refused to vote on it, saying he would not introduce an immigration bill that a majority of Republicans did not support.

2018: Divided Republicans kill an overhaul.

After Trump ended an Obama-era program that granted deferrals of deportation and work permits to undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, pressure mounted on Congress to enact new protections for them.

But Mr Trump said such a law would end decades of family migration policies, the construction of a border wall and a large-scale crackdown on other undocumented immigrants. House Republicans attempted to pass an immigration overhaul they had proposed as a compromise between their own moderates and conservatives. But all House Democrats and about half of House Republicans opposed it, and the measure failed by a vote of 121 to 301 on June 27, 2018.

What was suggested: At its core, the Republican bill envisaged passing tougher border security measures, such as Mr. Trump’s wall, in addition to measures to give Dreamers a path to citizenship. But the legislation also included conservative measures to limit options for asylum seekers and criminalize fraudulent applications, and to make it easier to detain migrant children as well as return unaccompanied minors to their countries of origin.

Why it didn’t work: Faced with an uprising from Republican moderates who had joined forces with Democrats to try to force a vote on legislation to protect the Dreamers, Speaker Paul D. Ryan attempted an overhaul that affected both the conservatives in his ranks and his more mainstream please. members. But the measure had strong headwinds from the start.

Democrats have vocally opposed the bill, which Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, then the minority leader, called “a vicious codification of President Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.” Republicans were still divided. And the legislation lost critical momentum after last-minute hesitation by Mr. Trump, who tweeted less than a week before the vote that Republican leaders should “stop wasting their time on immigration” until the party could win more Senate seats.

By the morning of the vote, Mr. Trump was back in favor of the legislation, but it was too late to convince his fractured conference to support it.