Members of Congress have left town for a week of recess without renewing or codifying the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program into law and there's no reason to think anything will change when they return to Washington.
If anything, it appears the Republican party has committed to being even less flexible for the remainder of the current session of Congress.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held out hope that Thursday’s votes won’t be the end of attempts to resolve the immigration puzzle. But he stood by the president’s demand that any DACA solution be tied to eliminating of the ability of Americans to sponsor siblings, parents and adult children for green cards.
"If a solution is developed in the future that can pass both the House and the Senate and be signed into law by the president, it should be considered," he said. "But for that to happen, Democrats will need to take a second look at these core elements of necessary reform."
The "core elements" McConnell refers to is the Donald Trump-Stephen Miller proposal to cut legal immigration by 50 percent and roll back family reunification. We can't say Trump's fantasy border wall is a core element at this point because Democrats agreed to start funding Trump's wall if he'll open up a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, but he didn't accept the offer.
Trump and the GOP are asking a price that is far too high for Democrats and immigration activists to support but the price is also apparently too high for some Republicans.
The Senate voted on four separate immigration proposals yesterday and the proposal favored by Trump and House Republicans received the fewest votes of all failing by a margin of 39 to 60. Trump's proposal wouldn't have received a simple majority of votes to pass even if there were no filibuster.
Senate Democrats were accused of "caving" when they agreed to reopen the federal government without codifying DACA but I never bought that line of attack because this was always going to be the end game.
Republicans control Congress. They control the White House. Senate Republicans were never going to codify DACA. House Republicans were never going to codify DACA. Trump was never going to sign a DACA bill. And why would he? It was Trump himself who gave the order to end the program.
The only way DACA will survive this year is in court and the only way we'll ever improve our immigration systems is by kicking racist Republicans out of office.