They’re nothing if not persistent. With the midterms just around the corner, a group of Congressional Democrats (and one Republican) are introducing legislation to shield illegal aliens, but only under specific circumstances. With significant numbers of unaccompanied minors coming into the country illegally or being separated from their parents if the adults are facing prosecution, quite a few of these kids wind up in the care of the Department of Health and Human services while they await a temporary home. Concerned citizens frequently come forward to offer their own homes for these purposes, which is quite admirable.

But not all of the “concerned citizens” are actually citizens. Some of them turn out to be illegal aliens themselves and in some cases, they have been detained and scheduled for deportation. This has drawn the attention of former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (yes, she’s still around), and she’s the sponsor of a bill designed to prevent the deportation of illegals who are trying to sponsor these children. (CNN)

A bipartisan group of lawmakers are seeking to prevent the Trump administration from arresting undocumented immigrants who come forward to take care of undocumented immigrant children who are in the country alone, after CNN reported such arrests were happening. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, said CNN’s reporting had prompted her to draft the legislation, which will be introduced with at least a dozen other Democrats and GOP Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida. CNN confirmed last month that dozens of immigrants who came forward to sponsor children out of custody had been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement from July to September, 70% of whom were arrested only on immigration violations.

First of all, this bill is obviously going nowhere. Even if you could get it out of committee and scheduled for a vote, I highly doubt you could even get a significant majority of the Democrats to go along with it, say nothing of the Republicans you’d need. It would also be dead on arrival if it made it to the Senate and you can obviously forget about the President signing it should it somehow land on his desk.

But that’s not the purpose of an effort like this. It’s just an attempt to get an issue which tugs at the heartstrings out onto the floor so Democrats can fundraise on the record of anyone who opposed it. And besides, with all of that free time that Wasserman-Schultz has on her hands these days she might as well draft a few bills.

Since we’re on the subject, however, let’s take a moment to examine the premise being put forth with this legislation. The claim here is that we can prevent the pursuit of a person who is guilty of a particular crime simply because they are volunteering to perform a specific good deed to assist children. While individual police have no doubt chosen to look the other way on occasion if some minor scofflaw was in the process of doing a public service, that’s not the norm. It’s also no way to regulate the activities of law enforcement. This bill would basically issue a temporary amnesty to anyone showing up and offering to take in a migrant child.

Could that happen from time to time on an unofficial basis? Clearly so, and I wouldn’t have any problem with an ICE agent who decided to do that. But as some sort of blanket, official policy enshrined in law it would be a terrible idea.