By Samuel Mattison
Alabama Political Reporter
Alabama House Republicans adopted two resolutions on Friday as part of their 2018 agenda entitled “Flag, Family, and Country.”
The House Republican Caucus adopted a resolution to urge Congress to fund a border wall with Mexico and urge that Americans citizens respect the American flag during ceremonies. Both issues have become more prevalent since President Donald Trump took office in September 2016.
House Majority Leader Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, said the resolutions passed by the caucus might as well be house resolutions as the caucuses’ hold on the chamber “reflect the body’s prevailing opinion on issues of importance.”
While the Alabama Caucus passed the resolutions, the funding for a border wall is still up in the air as a deal brokered between Democrats and Republicans fell through last week.
The latest falling out represents a half-year of troubled negotiations since Trump announced an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which granted legal protections to minor immigrants brought to the United States by their parents illegally. If the Trump Administration’s plan is enacted, more than 800,000 recipients could be deported.
Trump, who ran on a platform of tightening immigration laws, expressed that he would reconsider his administration’s decision on DACA if he could get a deal with Democrats for funding a border wall.
Despite the well-known negotiations, the president took to Twitter on Sunday to comment on the current state of negotiations.
“DACA is probably dead because the Democrats don’t really want it, they just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our Military,” Trump tweeted.
The latest development is that a federal court ruled that past DACA recipients can continue to reapply for the program despite the deadline set by the Trump administration for September of last year.
Protest during ceremonies honoring the American flag also became prevalent under the president’s administration and some would argue as a direct result of his actions at a rally in Huntsville last September during the U.S. Senate race.
Trump, while campaigning for former Sen. Luther Strange, called a protestor who would knell during the national anthem a “son of a bitch.”
The president’s comments overshadowed his visit to the Yellowhammer state and sparked a national backlash with many NFL teams taking the knee during the national anthem as a sign of solidarity between players.
