[A]fter weeks of bickering in the Republican caucus, the issue of how to address immigration came down to two votes in the U.S. House of Representatives. Vermont’s lone member voted against both of the proposals brought to the floor.
The right-wing Freedom Caucus has pushed for a hardline approach to immigration reform, going so far as to cause a vote on the farm bill to collapse last month while demanding House Speaker Paul Ryan allow an immigration measure to come to the floor.
Last week, the House voted down a bill that would have cut legal immigration, cracked down on sanctuary cities and employers who hire undocumented workers, and increased border security.
After the bill failed, House Republican leaders postponed a vote on a measure they billed as a compromise, which would have included a path to citizenship for some young undocumented immigrants and addressed the practice of family separation at the border while making new restrictions on immigration.
Rep. Peter Welch voted against both immigration measures.
In an interview last week, Welch derided the Republican leadership’s more moderate bill as a compromise “between bad and worse,” and said the leadership did not make any efforts to bring in Democratic voices in the process.
“I had as much to do with the writing of that bill as you did,” Welch said.
The congressman sees the recent debate in the House as confined to the majority party, with Democrats left largely on the sidelines.
“It’s been a furious debate within the Republican conference as to what they will do,” Welch said.
Meanwhile, Welch had joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers that signed a petition that would have forced Ryan to allow a debate on a measure to address young undocumented people who arrived in the country as children. The petition was two signatures short of the support it would need.
In setting the terms of debate on immigration, Republican leadership had included a provision that blocked that petition from going forward, which Welch said sets a precedent.
“In additional to two very bad bills, there was a power grab by the leadership to deprive the members of the house the use of the tool,” Welch said.
