Jon Chait notes that the two pieces of legislation meandering their way through the halls of Congress represent a clarifying mindset into the GOP. There are two priorities for Republicans: winning power and cutting taxes (confirming judges and deregulation are right there with them, but more in the "winning power" column). When it comes to Congress, it's all about cutting taxes. (I remember a clarifying conversation with my father right before his death, where he saw the election of Trump and realized that, yes, they will do and say anything to cut taxes).
The result is that there will be a tax cut bill paired with an expansion of the child tax credit, which did wonders for reducing the number of children living in poverty until it was allowed to lapse. This is classic horse trading between the parties: Democrats get to help poor children, Republicans get to help rich old white dudes.
Immigration, as Chait notes, is not an issue that Republicans actually want to solve. It's not just waiting for Trump to become president again, because you may recall the "migrant caravans" occurred under Trump during the midterms. Scaring people on booga booga immigration is pretty much all they are left with politically, especially if opinions of the economy improve. Given that the GOP has pretty much stopped talking about the economy, I'd wager that they are seeing some polling on the economy that has them spooked. Cue the scary brown people.
In the end, what seems to matter most of all for the GOP is cutting taxes. It took a death bed realization for my dad, I hope democracy does not look up from its death bed and note that it was killed because rich Americans scared enough poorer Americans to abandon democracy.
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