Arizona's Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, of all people, the former Code Pinker in the tutu , has come up with a sensible, bipartisan immigration proposal for ending asylum abuse, a proposal so good any Republican can support it.

According to National Review:

Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) has joined a bipartisan group of nine colleagues proposing a pilot program that would expedite the deportation of migrants who make invalid asylum claims. The senators outlined the Operation Safe Return program, which would allow the deportation of migrants within 15 days if their asylum claims are not credible, in a letter sent to acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan on Wednesday. “We write to urge you to use authorities in use as of June 30, 2019, to implement Operation Safe Return, a pilot program to rapidly, accurately, and fairly determine those families who have crossed the southern border that clearly do not have a valid legal claim and safely return them to their home countries,” the senators wrote. “Through this program, we expect that we can meet our commitments to humanitarian protections while ensuring proper efficiency, timeliness, order, and fairness in the credible fear screening process.” Sinema and Republican senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin led the effort to develop the program in response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis that has arisen at border-detention facilities in recent months due to overcrowding.

That's addressing reality on the ground. It's an incredible break from the insanity, led by the far-left freshman House "squad," and highly visible in the Democratic presidential nomination racee, of the Democrats now. This Democratic insanity wall has been evident in all sorts of acts and policy proposals. First the Democrats uniformly denied there was ever a border crisis despite the data. Then on the stateside they held out a banquet of incentives for illegal border crossers including free health care that Americans pay through the nose for. After that, they sought to thwart any reasonable effort by President Trump to get control of the border - no piddly $6 billion to build a wall so that the Border Patrol could focus on drug smugglers instead of babysit family units, no Defense money for a wall despite a clear national emergency. Not even money for toothpaste for detention centers, based on the votes from the squad. They also thwarted any effort to find out how many illegals are here via the Census. They yelled 'concentration camps' for illegal border crossers, called for the abolition of ICE, demanded the decriminalization of illegal border crossers, escorted rejected illegals back over into the U.S., and then screamed bloody murder about ICE raids to deport illegals who have already had their day in court and been ordered deported, throwing in legal advice for thwarting the process because nothing superceded the rights of illegals to stay. Democrats have been so solicitous of the interests of illegals in these acts, they have done it at the expense of Americans, making themselves the party of illegals and raising questions about whether they were more interested in importing a foreign cadre of socialist voters and padding congressional seat numbers than representing the country they were sworn to uphold.



And with the exception of that toothpaste vote, they were unanimous in their insanity. All ten hands went up at that Democratic debate on forking over taxpayer-paid free health care for illegals who haven't put a dime into the system.

But something broke with Sinema's sensible, reality-based proposal. She's a blue Senator in a red state, which suggests she knows that voters aren't happy with the insanity wall. She must know that political tides can turn. What's more, she's got an election ahead in six years, quite a bit longer down the line than many Democrats, meaning she's in a safe spot in terms of fundraising from the left - the lefties will forget this in six years. The risk for her among her fellow leftists who bankroll candidates is actually fairly low.

And in taking her sane position, she will build up bipartisan support for whatever reelection she may want years late and that might not be forgotten, voters forget less.

Even more important, a crisis may be averted for her border state if her proposal goes through, which would be good news for migrant-flooded Arizona.

She did seem to have a record as a pragmatic problem-solver during her time in the House as representative. She also refused to make her Senate election about President Trump and she must have meant that, Trump hate isn't her sole animating force as it is with the crazy faction ruling the Democrats. She may look flaky but she doesn't act flaky, and that's important. What I suspect is happening is that she and all the other red-state and moderate Democrats have had enough of all the press attention going to the 'squad' and its crazy proposals, and now they are trying to counter with some sensible counterproposals just to get these people off the front page. It had to have taken guts for Sinema to do this, and we know she is going to take some abuse from the crazies for it. But the proposal is out and from an unexpected source, so now the narrative is cratering. The wall has cracked. That may mean the groupthink is broken and maybe there will be more of them coming. Anything to get Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez off the front page. Anything to end the reality that the Democrats have been buried in a wall of craziness.

Call it statesmanship.