That time congressional Republicans postponed recess to rush … the deportation of DACA recipients

The U.S. is hurtling full-speed toward an iceberg, but the bumbling idiot at the helm continues to insist that everyone is safe to go back to their cabins. In fact, as Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson pointed out earlier on Thursday, impeached president Donald Trump has declared emergencies where there are none as a public health crisis is exploding across the nation. But he’s not alone in this criminal negligence: He’s getting an assist from the congressional Republicans who protected him from impeachment and removal from office.

“McConnell ally says Senate won't take up House coronavirus bill until after recess,” tweeted CNN correspondent Ana Cabrera. “’The Senate will act when we come back and we have a clearer idea of what extra steps we need to take,’ Sen. Lamar Alexander told reporters.” People’s lives are at stake, but Republicans are clearly laying out their priorities, immigration policy expert Tom Jawetz points out: “I'm old enough to remember when House GOP postponed August 2014 recess in part to make sure they voted on a bill to strip protections from DACA recipients.”

Roll Call reported at the time that the anti-immigrant legislation wasn’t going to be “taken up any time soon” by the Democratic-led Senate, “which already left for August recess.” Nor did this legislation, which would have effectively ended DACA, have had any chance of being approved by President Obama, who had implemented the program in 2012. That didn’t matter to House Republicans, who, led by Iowa’s most infamous white supremacist, Steve King, were really just trying to send immigrants a message: Get the fuck out.

I'm old enough to remember when @HouseGOP postponed August 2014 recess in part to make sure they voted on a bill to strip protections from #DACA recipients. https://t.co/NroDLmPSX5 https://t.co/lqNTDzmBhA

— Tom Jawetz (@TomJawetz) March 12, 2020

Our nation installed in the Oval Office a white supremacist sexual assaulter grifter who has no idea what he’s doing, but the blame for this incompetence isn’t solely his to bear. It’s also on the congressional Republicans helping him worsen a true national crisis, and who as a body had already shown themselves to be cruel and inhumane when the impeached president was nowhere near the White House and still on television judging a reality show.