The five stages of grieving are very similar to what I observed in Florida Republicans this past week.
We have the first denial. Democrats and Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, have repeatedly told us not to believe what we see when it comes to thousands of people who have crossed the border without our knowledge.
Mayorkas has lied several times to Congress regarding the security of the border. He is now being impeached for this.
The Republicans and those with common sense who see how serious this border crisis is will be the ones to express their anger. There are many reasons to be angry about a border crisis, whether it’s illegal migrants being slapped on the wrist or those who allow it to happen.
In the last few weeks, we have been in the “bargaining phase”. The current deal that is being hammered out by Sens. Chuck Schumer, Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), and James Lankford(R-Okla.), do not stop the crisis.
If the leaked draft is accurate, the border deal as it currently stands would limit border crossings to 5,000 per day and increase the number of green cards issued to 50,000 each year. It also appears to subsidize the lawyers of migrants.
House Republicans have made it clear that they will not negotiate a better deal. They even go so far as saying the government should shut down.
The depression phase is now in full swing: Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla. and Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla. are the Florida Republicans who pessimistically stated at the start of this article that any border agreement with the Biden Administration is essentially pointless.
Rubio said that not only would the provisions of the deal be ignored, but because the House Republicans won’t budge on their demand for tighter border security the Biden administration could offer up a border bill which they will reject, making Republicans look bad by refusing it.
This line of thinking has been adopted by other Democrats (not that Biden himself came up with it). The Democrats can say that Republicans are not confident in their ability to secure the border by saying “No, there is a border problem, let’s fix this.” By saying “Yes the border issue is a serious one; let’s fix the problem,” and Republicans replying “No, you cannot be trusted to secure the borders,” they can then point to them and claim, “See how they want to make it an issue Trump could run on!”
Gimenez claimed that the border crisis would only be resolved once Biden was replaced.
His comment might be more “acceptance-like” than “depression,” yet I’d hate to see the outcome when the rest of the country reaches its own “acceptance phase.” I’m assuming that the Democrats will be in control forever thanks to their newly imported voting bloc.
