Majority Leader Mitch McConnell accused Democrats on Wednesday of “stalling” on immigration as the Senate entered its third day of debate on the issue without having held a single policy vote.
Mr. McConnell said Democrats complained for months about the lack of a debate, yet now that he’s given them an entire week for the discussion, they have blocked any votes. That included two attempts to hold votes on a sanctuary city crackdown on Tuesday.
“Now that the time has come to make law instead of just making points, they’re stalling,” the Kentucky Republican said.
Democratic leaders say their chief goal in the debate is to legalize illegal immigrant “Dreamers,” and said they want to exclude as much as possible of the rest of the debate about security, enforcement and legal immigration policy changes.
That’s why they refused a vote on sanctuary cities, and have also said they will try to prevent action on limits to chain migration.
Instead of the free-wheeling debate they’d suggested, Democratic leaders are now hoping for another immigration “Grand Bargain” solution to emerge from a bipartisan working group.
SEE ALSO: Democrats block vote on sanctuary cities
“Progress is being made,” Sen. Richard J. Durbin said Tuesday evening as he blocked one of the attempts to vote on the anti-sanctuary city proposal.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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