Kyrsten Sinema scorches Senate GOP: Don't bring your border show to Arizona

A clearly furious Sen. Kyrsten Sinema scorched her Senate colleagues on Wednesday, and rightly so.

Faced with Republican colleagues possessed of a collective spine that is roughly the consistency of damp spaghetti, Sinema was sadly unable to deliver what most of America wants and so badly needs.

A fix, finally, to that hunk of Swiss cheese we call a border.

She seemed almost surprised that Republicans who have made their careers screaming about border security now won’t even deign to debate the bipartisan bill she spent months hammering out with Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

“Less than 24 hours after we released the bill, my Republican colleagues changed their mind,” a visibly frustrated Sinema said Wednesday on the Senate floor. “Turns out they want all talk and no action. It turns out border security is not actually a risk to our national security. It is just a talking point for the election.

“After all of their cable news appearances, after all those campaign photo ops in the desert, after all those trips to the border, this crisis isn’t actually much of a crisis after all.”

Bingo.

Sinema to GOP: Don't complain in Arizona

“So, if you want to spin the border crisis for your own political agendas, go right ahead,” she said. “If you want to continue to use the southern border as a backdrop for your political campaign, that’s fine — good luck to you.

“But I have a very clear message for anyone using the southern border for staged political events: Don’t come to Arizona. Take your political theater to Texas. Do not bring it to my state.”

Speaking of her state, it seems more obvious with every passing day that Sinema will not be running for reelection in Arizona.

Really, why would she even want to return to a place that, behind that grand marble façade, is so utterly broken?

That, however, doesn’t mean that she can’t have a big impact on the campaign trail this year.

It’s easy, really.

She just needs to hold onto that fire and remind voters every day — every day — that the border would be closed right now but for the likes of Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar and Eli Crane and Juan Ciscomani. But for people like Kari Lake, who became downright hysterical over the prospect of a closed border on Biden’s watch, spinning the lie that this was some diabolical globalist plot.

“This bill codifies the invasion of the United States of America,” she shrieked. “It allows 2 million illegal immigrants into our country per year.”

Business officials are for the border plan

Of course, the bill does nothing of the sort.

The conservative Wall Street Journal, hardly a friend to President Joe Biden, urged passage of the bipartisan border plan, saying, “By any honest reckoning, this is the most restrictive migrant legislation in decades.”

The Arizona Chamber of Commerce supported the bill, saying “Congress cannot afford to ignore these problems any longer.” So did the Phoenix Area Chamber of Commerce.

So did Yuma Mayor Doug Nicholls, a Republican whose city has been overwhelmed by what amounts to a security and humanitarian crisis. He called the bill “a step in support of enforcement.”

Not perfect, mind you. But a badly needed first step to assert some control over the chaos.

Acting U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Chief Troy Miller endorsed the plan.

“This proposed legislation would provide the strongest set of tools we have had in decades to effectively manage migration and enhance our nation’s border security,” he wrote, in an internal memo to employees, acquired by Fox News.

Trump-friendly Border Patrol agents are, too

The Trump-friendly National Border Patrol Council supported the plan, saying 60% of those apprehended at the border are single adults, many of them military age men.

The bill, the union group said, it would give the Border Patrol new powers “to remove single adults expeditiously and without a lengthy judicial review which historically has required the release of these individuals into the interior of the United States.”

Brandon Judd, president of the Border Patrol Council, pushed back on the GOP-spun lie that 5,000 people a day — or close to 2 million immigrants a year — would be released into the country every year.

“This does not say that we’re going to release 5,000 people into the United States,” he told Fox News. “In fact, it’s the exact opposite. It says that we will hold single adults in custody. So that is a huge deterrent.”

A deterrent that is not to be.

Tragically for us all, the Republican Party is held hostage by Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is far more interested in his own reelection than in a secure border.

Sinema should remind voters what was lost

Sinema should spend the next nine months reminding voters of that.

Reminding them that this bill would have resulted in a closed border for the last year, given the surge of migrants that has overwhelmed the system. That’s something Trump was never able to do, until COVID-19 came along, and he won’t be allowed to do in the future barring another pandemic.

Reminding them that this bill would have overhauled and strengthened the nation’s asylum program, raising the standard that must be met up front. And, for those who pass that initial screening, would have ended the insane catch-and-release system that releases migrants onto the streets to await a hearing that is years away.

Why Sinema must fight Trump: To pass her border bill

Reminding them that this bill would have provided billions of dollars for thousands of new immigration officers to keep the bad guys out and the drugs out. It would have allowed for immigration judges to make the asylum system functional.

And yes, it would have provided money to shore up the wall.

Reminding them, too, that this bill would have provided aid to hold back Vladimir Putin and to support Israel and Taiwan — aid that Republicans made conditional on a border package they now won’t support.

“Three weeks ago, everyone wanted to solve the border crisis,” Sinema marveled. “Yesterday, no one did.”

Sinema may not be our senator much longer, but she could spend the next nine months making sure that Arizona voters — the ones who aren’t held in thrall to Donald Trump — know exactly what we lost this week.

“The border would be closed today, and every single day this year so far, if the Border Emergency Authority were law,” Sinema said on Tuesday.

She should keep reminding us.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kyrsten Sinema scorches Senate GOP: Don't bring your border show to AZ