It has become the latest Trumpian litmus test: Anyone who doesn’t bend the knee is deemed an apostate. In rallying Republicans against the deal, Trump is showing his dominance over the party, proving to Republican officeholders and primary voters alike that he’s still the boss.
Trump does have policy objections to the bill, in his own way. His political program has never been about simply reducing undocumented immigration but rather dramatically reducing, if not shutting down, all forms of immigration. Because this bill doesn’t do that—it would likely preserve parole programs that make it easier for asylum-seekers to apply from abroad, i.e., not at border crossings—it must be summarily rejected. But Trump’s opposition is primarily political. In his own estimation, chaos at the border is good for him: He can point to the thousands of daily crossings as evidence of Biden’s failed immigration policies (while also, more sinisterly, use them to bolster his fascistic argument that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the country”).
His allies agree. Were the immigration deal to pass, the thinking goes, it would neuter Trump’s core campaign message and give Biden a bipartisan win. A “border deal that actually reduced the flow of illegal immigration, that would be good for [Biden] politically,” South Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer said last week.