Democrats Prioritize Illegal Immigrants’ Amnesty Over Children’s Health Care

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) accused Democrats Thursday of holding health funding for children hostage over “unrelated issues” like a proposed amnesty for illegal immigrants brought to America as children.

With Friday’s deadline of a partial government shutdown looming, Republicans have offered to reauthorize the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for six years as part of a short-term spending bill. The House planned to vote on the measure late Thursday.

But Democrats so far have balked at supporting it unless Congress also extends permanent residency to illegal immigrants enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA).

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Ryan told reporters that seven states — Alabama, Connecticut, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oregon, Virginia and Washington state — are running low on federal CHIP funds to provide health insurance to lower-income children.

“These are states that are running out of CHIP money if we don’t get this thing passed,” he said. “And I can’t imagine why somebody would want to vote against doing that.”

But many Democrats have said they do not want to surrender leverage on the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) compared the GOP offer Thursday to putting a cherry on top of a “bowl of doggy-doo” and calling it a chocolate sundae.

“This is nothing,” she told reporters on Capitol Hill. “This CHIP should have been done in September, first of all. Second, we wanted 10 years. We wanted permanent CHIP, which by the way, saves $6 billion.”

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday that he would hold firm on DACA amnesty.

“I’m so happy that CHIP is in there,” he said. “It’s crazy that it has not been. But let’s just understand, this crisis with the dreamers was manufactured by the president of the United States. He insinuated this into the political process, and then he asked for a deal.”

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Wednesday that CHIP is an important program.

“But again, the Republicans have actually used CHIP as a — as a bargaining CHIP, quote, unquote. Sorry. Not to make a pun,” he said.

Later, he added that he would not “allow them to use that as a bargaining chip, considering we have 700,000 families, essentially, that are up for deportation.”

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) told The Daily Beast Wednesday that CHIP should be passed separately.

“We have a chance to extend CHIP permanently and we should take it, without attaching it to controversial matters,” he said.

Liberals outside of Congress also urged rejection of a spending bill to fund CHIP without dreamer amnesty.

“I have never, ever seen anything so cynical in my entire life. The GOP delayed CHIP for health care repeal, then for tax cuts. They can easily pass CHIP separately at any time,” tweeted Topher Spiro, vice president of health policy at the Center for American Progress.

Immigration hawks criticized the willingness of Democrats to prioritize amnesty for 690,000 illegal immigrants over health care for 9 million American children. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), said Democrats’ posturing on the issue demonstrates that the party’s activist base considers DACA the top issue.

“They’re putting the interests of law-breakers who have violated the law over vulnerable people … I think Americans would prioritize CHIP.”

“That is nothing that can take priority over amnesty for illegal immigration … This is just another chapter in the sad decline of the Democratic Party,” he told LifeZette.

Matthew O’Brien, director of research at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), said the refusal of Democrats to support a spending bill that includes children’s health funding shows how radical they have become on immigration.

“It’s hypocritical. This is the very kind of thing Democrats increasingly accuse Republicans of doing,” he said. “They’re putting the interests of lawbreakers who have violated the law over vulnerable people … I think Americans would prioritize CHIP.”

In his Thursday news conference, Ryan highlighted the hypocrisy by reciting a quote from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of (D-N.Y.) in October 2013: “We believe strongly in immigration reform. We could say, ‘We’re shutting down the government until you pass immigration reform.’ It would be governmental chaos.”

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Ryan said Schumer’s words are as true now as they were then. It is “just unconscionable” to hold up important priorities like military funding, the speaker said.

“This strategy is governmental chaos,” he said. “I could not agree more. We should not be playing these games.”

President Donald Trump blamed Democrats.

“If the government shuts down, which could very well be, the budget, the group that loses big would be the military, and we’re never letting our military lose at any point,” he told reporters as he was leaving for an event in Pennsylvania.

PoliZette senior writer Brendan Kirby can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.

(photo credit, homepage image: DACA Protest Columbus Circle, CC BY-SA 4.0, by Rhododendrites; photo credit, article image: Los Angeles March for Immigrant Rights, CC BY 2.0, by Molly Adams)