The blame game has begun. Left-wing anger is growing at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Senate Democrats for backing down on their threat to keep the government closed unless Congress agreed to some legislative protections for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

But it’s worth pointing out the obvious: Republicans are the people who have put the hundreds of thousands of DREAMers at risk.

The real reason Schumer and Senate Democrats are struggling to secure help for DREAMers is that there are only 49 of them in a 100-person body (and you need 60 to pass legislation), their colleagues in the House are even more disempowered than they are, and the executive branch is controlled by people who are fundamentally hostile to the cause.

The reason the DREAM Act failed in 2010 is that Republicans killed it. The reason comprehensive immigration reform failed in 2013 is that Republicans killed it. The reason DACA ended in 2017 is that Republicans killed it. And the reason that the bipartisan Durbin-Graham plan to help DREAMers hasn’t been enacted in 2018 is that Republicans are blocking it.

The most important thing Senate Democrats can do on immigration with only 49 votes is block the passage of new, bad immigration laws unless they receive offsetting policy concessions. And they are doing that. The Trump administration knows that if it wants to secure changes to US immigration law, it’s going to need to give Democrats help on DACA in exchange.