Most of you probably suspected this already, but it’s looking increasingly like the Democratic leadership in the Senate is getting ready to confirm it. There have been ongoing talks between a relative handful of Republicans in the upper chamber and some of the more moderate Democrats who are willing to look at a more scaled-back version of some sort of immigration reform bill. But the far-left wing of the party doesn’t want anything to do with that and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sounds like he’s still willing to march to their tune. He’s telling some of his more pro-amnesty colleagues this week that he’s developing a plan to force through a full amnesty package via reconciliation. And rather than making it some sort of stand-alone bill that could be debated on its merits, he’s ready to shoehorn it into the massive infrastructure bill. Because, as I’m sure you all know by now, illegal aliens are infrastructure, baby. (NY Times)

Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, is quietly considering trying to use a fast-track budget maneuver to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants should bipartisan talks on providing a pathway to citizenship fall apart.

Mr. Schumer has privately told members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in recent weeks that he is “actively exploring” whether it would be possible to attach a broad revision of immigration laws to President Biden’s infrastructure plan and pass it through a process known as budget reconciliation, according to two people briefed on his comments.

The move would allow the measures to pass the evenly divided Senate with a simple majority of 51 votes, shielding them from a filibuster and the 60-vote threshold for moving past one, which would otherwise require at least 10 Republican votes.

As if the infrastructure bill wasn’t already enough of a joke, with the vast majority of it having nothing to do with actual infrastructure. It’s a Democrat’s wishlist written into legislative form. And now Chuck Schumer wants to jam a massive change to our immigration laws into it?

If he actually attempts this it will be yet another massive abuse of the reconciliation process. That tool is designed to be used to get must-pass, omnibus spending bills over the finish line so they aren’t eternally bogged down in horse-trading deals over every last budget item. Immigration law is not a budgetary measure and is completely inappropriate for a reconciliation approach. Also, as I already mentioned, it has nothing to do with infrastructure, either.

Schumer has clearly been listening to Bernie Sanders who just this morning was telling reporters that Joe Biden’s agenda is “finished” if they lose either the House or the Senate majority next year. And given the rate at which they’re trying to shovel through policies that are far less popular than they imagine, that’s a very real possibility. So the Democrats need to try to throw as many Hail Mary passes down the field as they can in the next 15 months or so.

But the more poison pills Chuck Schumer adds to this supposed infrastructure package, the further he withdraws from the finish line. The Senate Parliamentarian has already bent the rules by saying that reconciliation could be used a second time this year, but it’s still supposed to apply to budgetary matters. He’s already trimmed some non-budget items out of the mix in the past and the Senate GOP will definitely be flagging any sort of amnesty measure in such a bill for closer attention.

On top of that, King Joseph of West Virginia has gone on record saying there is “no circumstance” under which he would support pushing any other huge bills through without bipartisan consensus using reconciliation. Without Manchin, Schumer has to start finding some Republicans to vote with him. And the more of this radical liberal claptrap he dumps into the infrastructure stew, the less likely he will be to find a single GOP vote.

While there is measurable support for amnesty for the so-called “dreamers,” blanket amnesty for all ten to twelve million illegal aliens is not a majority position in this country. Such a plan will only cause more trouble for the Democrats at the midterms. But this isn’t really about “inclusiveness” in reality. The Democrats want to add ten million new people to the voting rolls that they believe will largely register with their party. If we were talking about ten million people from eastern Europe who were fleeing socialism, you can rest assured that Chuck Schumer and his friends would slam the door in their faces in a New York minute. It’s the same as with the DC statehood push that’s back in the news. Nobody in Schumer’s caucus actually gives two flying figs about “taxation without representation.” They’re trying to permanently add two more Democratic seats to the Senate. And all of this should be glaringly obvious by now.