Gisele Fetterman's Husband Wants Citizenship For Dreamers
Good morning!
In this 11th edition of Capitol.press, we focus on our news staple: migrants, which our colleagues on the Capitol beat dehumanize as "border." Let's jump in —
“They should be citizens,” Senator John Fetterman told me last week when I asked him about his ideal migrant policy package in the Senate. It was a significant revelation that, unsurprisingly, landed with a thud in the political press.
The opposite was true of the scoop I got from the junior Senator from Pennsylvania in December, when Fetterman told me that he wants to "secure the border." His comment resulted in over a month of national politics coverage and bloviations in the punditry that cast Fetterman as a border hawk breaking with his party.
All the while no one asked Fetterman, whose wife Gisele migrated illegally to New York City from Rio de Janeiro, the nuances of his "border" take. Instead it was assumed by many (including me) that the recovering stroke survivor had become fashionably anti-immigrant like so many Democrats are expected to during this election cycle.
My assumption was incorrect. Fetterman is not anti-immigrant. Ignorant, sure, of the policy that goes into a politically charged talking point like "secure the border" — but not anti-immigrant. My mistake. I, too, owe the Big Fella and his team an apology for failing to recognize the nuance there.
Nevertheless, Fetterman agreed to speak with me at length last week, a gentleman's move I shan't forget. You can read my story in The New Republic here. But since migrant policy is a complex and grossly underserved Capitol beat that continues to get conflated with border policy (or simply as "border") we think it's worth taking a moment to articulate the difference —
Migrant Policy ≠ "Border"
"Border" in the political press is more a buzzword than a policy position. Even the most esteemed political reporters on the Capitol parrot "border" reflexively in their news products, even if it defies any measure of accuracy within the policy story they're writing.
Not everyone on the Capitol beat gets it wrong, mind you. Julie Tsirkin and Kate Santaliz at NBC News recognize the unsubtle distinctions between migrant and border policies, describing them accurately in their news products. Since most Hill press still get it completely wrong, here's a quick primer —
So to review: A border is a location. A migrant is a human. Policy proposals that impact the location (i.e. the border) are border policy stories. Proposals that impact the people who migrate or have migrated are human stories.
The difference is not semantic, as Senate Republicans are well aware. Senators James Lankford and Thom Tillis insisted early in the latest so-called Gang of Four migrant policy working group that this was not an immigration negotiation. Instead, said Lankford at the time, "this is about the border."
It was never about the border, of course, which brings us back to Fetterman. It should surprise no one that the junior senator has no idea what he's talking about when it comes the U.S.- Mexico border. He's just a second-year freshman. And he's from fuckin Pennsylvania.
“Dreamers” are the migrants Fetterman fights for, not that anyone bothered to ask until we did. We had asked Mrs. Fetterman about her husband's positions on immigration while she was busy winning his election for him after he suffered a catastrophic stroke on the campaign trail in on May 13, 2022.
That's when Mrs. Fetterman stepped up big time and won her husband's campaign for him while he recovered from the stroke. She is now the first formerly undocumented Senate spouse, a factoid she wore as a badge of honor when she arrived at the Capitol for freshman orientation two years ago in November.
Gisele told me in phone interviews during and after the campaign that her husband would fight for migrant rights, but mostly avoided specifics. John married her, she said, so of course he loves migrants. Gisele has since taken a break from social media, deleting her popular Instagram account and going silent on Twitter.
The so-called Gang of Four White Senators, meanwhile, has shrunk to a Gang of Three, as Tillis has ditched the project. No one knows why yet, and we don't really care. Tillis and Lankford enjoyed weeks of press attention offering non-updates on their negotiation with Kyrsten Sinema and Democrat Chris Murphy, offering no work product whatsoever in the end.
We'll write-up a post mortem on the negotiations when after they're confirmed dead. Until then we'll keep our eye on the migrant policy beat, our staple in the Capitol. We hope that you'll subscribe and tell your friends.
What We're Reading
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— Aidan Quigley, Roll Call
Another Migrant Policy Backfires on Desantis in Florida
— Manuel Boroquez, CBS News
How to Protect Your Migrant Family if Trump Wins
— Jean Guerrero, Los Angeles Times
Max Frost Begs Marge to Stop Showing Hunter Biden Nudes
— Jessica Washington, The Root