美国国家公共电台 NPR Trump Injects Chaos Into Immigration Debate — Opposing, Then Backing GOP Bill

 

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

House Republican leaders were prepping for a vote next week on immigration legislation that they negotiated with conservatives and moderates, but President Trump¹ threw a wrench² into that when he suggested this morning that he didn't support their efforts. NPR's Kelsey Snell has the latest on this and joins us here in the studio. Hey there, Kelsey.

KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE³: Hi there.

CORNISH: There's a lot of confusion here.

SNELL: Yes (laughter).

CORNISH: Break it down for us. What happened?

SNELL: Well, we started the morning with the president saying that he didn't support the moderate bill. Now, it's important to remember that these two immigration bills - one was being negotiated with a group of moderate Republicans. The other one was being negotiated with some conservatives.

CORNISH: And the White House knew this.

SNELL: The White House knew this. The White House was involved. The White House had staff that were helping⁴ write these bills. The president said he didn't like the moderate one, but then about nine hours later, after a daylong scramble⁵ in Congress, the White House put out a new statement saying that the president supports both bills and would sign either of them.

Now, that is a really confusing situation to be in if you're House leadership attempting to actually get votes on a bill that you would like to have passed in less than a week. They were supposed to spend most of today doing that, asking these members who's going to vote for what, but they didn't get the chance. And it kind of became a chaotic⁶ day.

CORNISH: And as you said, they had hoped to vote on it next week. Is that still the plan?

SNELL: That is still the plan, but that - now that the president has weighed in, that doesn't exactly clear up the confusion because if he's supporting both bills, it makes it very hard for people to kind of figure out where they're going to go. And it puts a lot of pressure on leaders because they now really own this issue of immigration. It had been one of those things where they were fighting between Republicans and Democrats⁷, and this moves it into a space where it is squarely a fight between Republicans about what an immigration bill should do.

And it's particularly important to a lot of these guys, like Mario Diaz-Balart from Florida, who's helping organize the moderates. I talked to him today, and he said this is the best and possibly only chance to get wall funding and other White House priorities passed.

MARIO DIAZ-BALART: It's the only shot, I believe, to legalize the DREAMers, to stop the deportation⁸ of the DREAMers and to have a permanent fix for them.

CORNISH: On another issue, the president tried to blame Democrats for the situation on the border where children are being separated from their parents. He claims that it's their fault that an immigration bill hasn't passed. Tease out these two issues. And what are Democrats saying about it?

SNELL: Democrats basically don't have anything to do with this at this point. I mean, this is a matter of the way the Trump administration is interpreting a court ruling. That is how they're deciding to do the family separation at the border.

CORNISH: So it's a policy choice, not a law.

SNELL: It is a policy choice. Now, House Speaker Paul Ryan has said that he would like to pass a law to keep families together at the border, but this is not a partisan⁹ issue at this point except for the fact that Democrats don't support the policy. Though it's important to note a lot of Republicans don't support the way the White House is interpreting this.

And again, like I said, this is a big move where Republicans are taking a lot of the political blame here. So if things don't work out, if they don't pass a bill that protects these families or they don't pass an immigration bill at all this year, it will be squarely in the court of Republicans to explain why they couldn't agree within themselves and with the president on getting that done.

CORNISH: That's NPR's Kelsey Snell. Kelsey, thank you.

SNELL: Thank you.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 wrench   

v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受

参考例句：

• He gave a wrench to his ankle when he jumped down.他跳下去的时候扭伤了足踝。
• It was a wrench to leave the old home.离开这个老家非常痛苦。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

5 scramble   

v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料

参考例句：

• He broke his leg in his scramble down the wall.他爬墙摔断了腿。
• It was a long scramble to the top of the hill.到山顶须要爬登一段长路。

6 chaotic   

adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的

参考例句：

• Things have been getting chaotic in the office recently.最近办公室的情况越来越乱了。
• The traffic in the city was chaotic.这城市的交通糟透了。

7 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 deportation   

n.驱逐，放逐

参考例句：

• The government issued a deportation order against the four men.政府发出了对那4名男子的驱逐令。
• Years ago convicted criminals in England could face deportation to Australia.很多年以前，英国已定罪的犯人可能被驱逐到澳大利亚。

9 partisan   

adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒

参考例句：

• In their anger they forget all the partisan quarrels.愤怒之中，他们忘掉一切党派之争。
• The numerous newly created partisan detachments began working slowly towards that region.许多新建的游击队都开始慢慢地向那里移动。