Obstruction and Immigration Reform

Bill Heller

Letter to the Editor

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

February 8, 2024

The last time a meaningful immigration bill was passed was under Reagan.  After months of discussions and acceding to the demands of Republicans to combine border security with funding for Ukraine defense, Congress has come up with a common-sense bill with bipartisan support.  Now at the last minute, King Donald poisoned the deal because he’d rather have a continued disaster than allow anything to be done about it.  What ever happened to America First?  

Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to be pummeled by Russia while being forced to conserve ammunition.  You can’t fight a war using ammo that hasn’t been delivered.  It’s just like a cash flow problem.  You can’t spend accounts receivable.  When we abandon Ukraine without support, what does that tell China about Taiwan or N Korea about forbearance?  Not to mention Russia.

Yesterday a bipartisan committee publicly fried tech executives for not preventing bullying and sexually explicit messaging on line.  They seemed to relish the spotlight, and the pretext of maybe doing something.  Not that this isn’t an important issue, but is not border security at least as important?    

Secretary Mayorkas is being impeached over the disaster going on at the border, while simultaneously Congress refuses to fund the necessary resources.  How hypocritical is that? 

The Oklahoma GOP has severely criticized its Senator James Lankford for the offense of negotiating with Democrats to help resolve this issue.  He’s one of the most conservative members of Congress!

The former president would rather use this as a divisive issue than solve it.  You only want to MAGA if Trump is in office, but you want to knee cap the country to prevent a reasonable solution?  Meanwhile, immigrants are pouring in at record pace. The hypocrisy of Republicans to obstruct this bill for purely political reasons is the definition of extremism.

Bill Heller

Palisade