Thread: Congress struggles to come up with a fix for 'Dreamers'

Congress struggles to come up with a fix for 'Dreamers'


Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa confers with the panel's ranking Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. (Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)



Sarah D. Wire


It has been four weeks since President Trump gave Congress a six-month deadline to figure out a solution for immigrants in the U.S. illegally who had been protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. An estimated one-fourth of the program’s 800,000 recipients live in California.


A hearing Tuesday illustrated just how far lawmakers are from a deal, with members of the president’s own party asking for guidance on a fix.


The highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, urged colleagues to pass a piecemeal fix that focuses on so-called Dreamers before DACA officially ends. Trump has said lawmakers have until March 5 to get something done before DACA beneficiaries start losing deportation protections and the ability to work legally in the country.


“Every day that we fail to act means one more day that hundreds of thousands of Dreamers... are forced to live with this cloud hanging over them,” Feinstein said.

A California medical school student implored senators Tuesday to provide a pathway for citizenship for people like her who came to the country illegally as children.


“DACA has allowed us to lead almost normal lives and give back to our communities,” said Denisse Rojas Marquez, 28, of Fremont. “The fate of 800,000 individuals rests in your hands and we desperately need your help.”


Beside her at the witness table was a man whose mother-in-law was raped and killed by a young immigrant. He said any path to a legal status for Dreamers, as the group is often called, is a slippery slope to amnesty.


Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) read aloud some Trump tweets about DACA and a border wall, and suggested what the president wants “reads like a laundry list of comprehensive immigration reform.” Such a plan, which Democrats and some Republicans favor, has been tried repeatedly over the last decade but has never gotten far.



http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-p...003-story.html