YOU ARE NOT EXPLAINING WHY THE HISPANIC CAUCUS DID WHAT IT DID.
Got it. Well, I am not Hispanic, not in Congress, and definitely not eligible to be in it. I also don't know anybody in it, and my real life psychic abilities are limited.
Look, you keep asking me to read their minds, so allow me to give you something I can do: some insight into how the meeting with Kelly went.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/hispan ... ed-defiantBut the reported slur hung over the meeting like a cloud, and the Latino members were additionally frustrated that
Kelly gave them no clear indication of what the White House is willing to support on an immigration deal, and did not himself know the details of the bipartisan plans put forward in the House and the Senate. Other members present said while no s-bombs were dropped, Kelly used other terms they found offensive to refer to certain immigrants and immigration mechanisms.[snip]
In a sign of the new low bar set for policy talks in Washington, several members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus insisted to TPM that their meeting with Kelly never became heated or devolved into profanity.
But neither did it give them a clear path forward on eleventh-hour negotiations around the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.“The problem is not the ability to have a cordial conversation, the problem is having a substantive conversation where we learn what the administration wants in return for saving the DREAMers,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) complained in Spanish as he exited the meaning. “I didn’t get a sense that the administration has a clear bottom line.”Menendez added that, while unclear, the White House’s demands seemed to be “way beyond” what is realistic.
“What they want in return [for DACA] is a continuously moving target, and it continuously expands,” he said, in English. “Interior enforcement, more border patrol, a wall, asylum reform—these are the type of things we talked about for a comprehensive immigration package that covered broader 11 million undocumented people. The administration continues to seem to want everything Democrats were willing to give in the process of considering comprehensive reform just for these 700,000 young people [under DACA]. But holding them hostage to that type of view is simply not acceptable.”In the meeting, members said, they pushed Kelly to narrow the scope of a deal, putting aside the President’s previous demands for terminating the diversity lottery visa program and for dramatically cutting back on family reunification programs, and focusing instead just on DACA paired with some form of border security. Kelly did not agree to this framework, the lawmakers said, though he “listened respectfully.”
Several lawmakers independently confirmed to TPM following the meeting that Kelly came unprepared to discuss either of two bipartisan immigration proposals recently put forward, the one in the Senate crafted by Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) or the one in the House written by Reps. Will Hurd (R-TX) and Pete Aguilar (D-CA).“I was surprised he didn’t even know what the Hurd-Aguilar bill was,” Chu said. “He knew about the Goodlatte bill,” she added, referring to a Republican-only proposal that, among other hardline provisions opposed by Democrats, strips federal funding from sanctuary cities.Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) told reporters he saw Kelly’s lack of knowledge about the bipartisan bills as “not a good indication.”“I’m not optimistic,” he said in Spanish. “I didn’t feel that that the General is an effective voice or leader in the White House in order to move this issue.”Multiple representatives who attended the meeting added that while Kelly was not aware of the details of the bipartisan proposals, he dismissed them as not truly bipartisan.
“He looks at Senators Graham and Durbin as those who regularly work on bipartisan bill, and said, ‘No, I want to bring other people in,'” lamented Gutierrez. “But all of us know that’s how you get things done around here. You find people with common goals, values and ideals who are Republicans and Democrats, and then they cobble something together.”
Kelly’s insistence that far-right immigration hardliners be included in negotiations, Gutierrez said, is “like saying, ‘I want to reform baseball,’ but you insist on including people who say, ‘We should eliminate baseball altogether. I hate baseball.’ You can’t reform it like that.” (*)
[snip]
Speaking to reporters in the ornate hallway outside the meeting room, Chu added that she raised with Kelly that “the term ‘chain migration’ is offensive to us” when referring to the process of citizens and permanent residents sponsoring their relatives to come the United States. “In fact, when the law was passed in 1965, it was called family-based immigration,” she said.[snip][end]
(*) Yes, Rep. Gutierrez. EXACTLY.
OK. So allow me to take a stab at your question.
You have a negotiation. One side has no fucking clue not only about the issues, but what Congress is already doing about it. They showed up completely unprepared, thus not really serious about finding a solution. They keep shooting down what you are offering, but when asked what they want, it is some hazy misty moving target on the dark side of the moon they are unable to explain.
Questions:
a)
who really didn't want a deal? (seems like the other guys)
b) frustration leads to revelation. "They don't know their ass from their elbow". Yeah, I too would say it to a hot mic.
My answer.