Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

Congressional Republicans appear poised to betray conservatives and hand Democrats a spectacular victory over President Trump by funding left-wing priorities such as illegal alien-shielding sanctuary cities in the must-pass omnibus spending bill this week, media reports suggest.

The sanctuary movement gave illegal aliens permission to rob, rape, and murder Americans by, among other things, stigmatizing immigration enforcement. Some left-wingers call sanctuary jurisdictions “civil liberties safe zones” to blur the distinction between citizens and non-citizens by implying illegal aliens somehow possess a civil right to be present in the U.S. Leftists also like to refer to all migrants, including illegal aliens, simply as “immigrants” in order to further muddy the waters.

Sanctuary cities should be called traitor cities because they are in open rebellion against the United States just as much as the Confederate Army was when it opened fire on Fort Sumter. Their modern-day campaign of massive resistance against federal immigration authorities can only end in civil strife.

Blocking Department of Justice law enforcement assistance grants to sanctuary jurisdictions is a Trump administration priority but for the most part Congress has been cool to the proposal.

Although some details of the $1.3 trillion spending legislation have been trickling out, the text of the bill was reportedly being kept under “lock and key” and had not become publicly available as of late Monday. If fresh funding isn’t approved by the end of the day this Friday, March 23, the federal government will run out of money and partially shut down for the second time in the current calendar year. It has been reported that the House will begin considering the mystery bill on Wednesday.

If Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) do in fact shiv the conservative voters who gave them their respective majorities, a booming economy may not save GOP office-holders from the backlash. They may very well be drowned in the much vaunted “blue wave” NeverTrumpers like Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), as well as erstwhile conservative columnists Bill Kristol, Max Boot, and Jennifer Rubin are praying for. Double-crossing conservative voters on immigration, the thinking goes, will make those voters stay home on Election Day this November 6, and hand control over Congress back to the increasingly affective, radical Democrats.

Let the Democrats retake the House of Representatives and some say President Trump will be impeached, likely for something as jaw-droppingly stupid and implausible as the Left’s tinfoil-hat Russian electoral collusion conspiracy theory. Although getting 67 of the 100 senators to convict a president of “high crimes and misdemeanors” is not easy, cobbling together that kind of supermajority to remove the low-polling Trump from office wouldn’t necessarily be unthinkable given the passions he inspires, especially if Senate Democrats have a strong showing in November.

Robert Donachie, a congressional reporter at the Daily Caller, offered a sobering scenario in a video embedded in a recent article:

Conservatives and Republican voters put Donald Trump in office and many of the conservatives who came in 2016 on the promise that they would make a border wall, that they would cut funding for sanctuary cities, that they would be tougher on immigration, so only time will tell exactly how this plays out. But if it plays out that Congress caves to Democrats and undercuts their own party, Republicans could very well lose the House in 2018 and they only have a 51-seat majority in the Senate, and there are a number of senators who are up for reelection.

Despite political pressure from the GOP grassroots, there is little evidence that lawmakers are serious about beefing up border protection and enforcing the nation’s long-neglected immigration laws. Providing funding in the omnibus bill for the proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border that was a centerpiece of Trump’s election campaign has apparently not yet been ruled out, but it seems like a longshot. And because congressional elections take place this year, not too many lawmakers are likely to take courageous stands on controversial issues.

To boil it down, congressional leaders don’t give a farthing’s cuss about the president’s priorities, an unidentified senior Republican aide told Donachie:

House and Senate leadership has rolled over and played dead on border security. When it comes to a border wall, they say it is not our problem. When it comes to funding sanctuary cities, they say it is not our problem. What they are essentially saying is we are going to pass bills with more Democrats than Republicans. This is a sign to the administration that leadership doesn’t care what the White House wants. Even though GOP members ran on these issues. Conservatives mean it. The administration means it.

As of this past Friday, language in the draft bill would do nothing to block the flow of federal grant monies to sanctuary jurisdictions like San Francisco that brazenly obstruct federal immigration enforcement, Donachie reported, citing his source. As of Friday, the spending measure included funding for Planned Parenthood, gun-control language, an Obamacare-related bailout for insurers, and a new tax on Internet-based transactions, according to the source.

A legislative fix allowing those who have benefitted from the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program seems unlikely to be included in the omnibus bill. There are around 700,000 DACA-eligible individuals who came as young people to the U.S. but they are a small subset of perhaps around 4 million or so so-called DREAMers, many of whom failed to apply for relief under DACA but could conceivably qualify under the kind of amnesty Democrats want.

DREAMers are the stuff of leftist myth. The expression comes from the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act, a legislative proposal to grant underage illegals immigration amnesty. The conceit was invented to promote the illegal immigration Democrats need to win elections. Contrary to what the word implies, DREAMers tend to be less educated and less established than typical Americans.

Although Trump ordered DACA ended, an overreaching leftist judge ordered the administration to continue taking renewal applications under the program from status-holders who failed to meet an October deadline. The court remains in effect.

Media reports that came after Donachie’s article suggest that some of the more controversial items have been stripped out of the draft omnibus legislation in order to assure its timely passage.

In a discussion about Obamacare, House Republicans said yesterday that the omnibus measure “will not include funding for cost sharing reduction or reinsurance,” according to Inside Health Policy. But Senate Health Committee chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said “he would try to force a floor vote that would attach funding for cost-sharing reduction payments and reinsurance to the omnibus, and warned that Americans will see premiums skyrocket ahead of the mid-terms if Congress refuses to act.”

As previously reported, federal prosecutors are considering filing criminal charges against elected officials harboring illegal aliens in sanctuary cities.

“The Department of Justice is reviewing what avenues might be available,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told a Senate panel Jan. 16. “The context of this is of course not only putting my ICE officers at risk but also finding an efficient and effective way to enforce our immigration laws,” Nielsen said.

Will congressional leaders try to interfere with any prosecutions arising from sanctuary jurisdictions leaders obstructing federal immigration law?

We may soon find out.