Congress better act before it pretends to shut down

Friday is the deadline for Congress to act before the government runs out of money on paper and has to pretend to shut down.

Was Donald Trump dog whistling socialists?

In the past, that has meant the Klondike Gold Rush Museum in Pioneer Square closes, the entrance gate at Mount Rainier is locked and guests are told to leave the lodge, veterans who try to visit the war memorials in Washington D.C. are turned away, and a lot of government employees are told to stay home, even though they all still get paid.

And then the government pays extra for the security required to guard the unattended monuments and closed-down parks.

It’s pretty much one of the stupidest things Congress does and it looks like it’s all because of the DACA deal that everyone thought was done.

Just to refresh my memory, I went back to the tape of that open White House immigration meeting a week ago. Senator Dianne Feinstein suggested fixing DACA first then going on to comprehensive reform.

Republicans pushed back, saying increased security had to be part of that. After the exchange, this is what the president concluded:

“I think what we’re all saying is we’ll do DACA and we can certainly start comprehensive immigration reform the following afternoon, OK? We’ll take an hour off and then we’ll start. But I do believe that, because once we get DACA done, if it’s done properly — with security and everything else — if it’s done properly we have taken a big chunk of comprehensive out of the negotiation and I don’t think it’s going to be that complicated.”

Then here’s what he said right before they sent the reporters away:

“I think my positions are going to be what the people in this room come up with. I am very much reliant on the people in this room … What I approve is going to be very much reliant on what the people in this room come to me with … If they come to me with things I am not in love with I am going to do it because I respect them.”

And at the end, he was asked by a reporter what he was actually agreeing to. Was he agreeing to fix the problem of the DACA children first — with the deadline looming — and then go on to more comprehensive reform?

“I think comprehensive will be phase two. I think it will happen.”

Since then, a judge that ruled that he can’t just take away the protection for those people in the way that he did because, according to the judge, the only reason he was scrapping the program was as a bargaining chip to get money for his border wall.

The lawsuit was filed by an eighth-grade teacher in Los Angeles who was brought to the United States when she was 8, and who would be kicked out of the country if the program ends.

The judge agreed with her that repealing DACA was an illegal “bait and switch,” in which the government encouraged young immigrants to apply and then arbitrarily revoked their protection.

So, as of now, DACA stays in place, and people can continue to apply.

Trump could appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, which is more conservative than the 9th district court which issued that ruling. But I’ve seen no indication that he’s decided to do that. Perhaps because were he to lose, then DACA would be permanent.

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