GOP lawmakers say Trump wants tough measures in Dreamers deal
GOP lawmakers say Trump wants tough measures in Dreamers deal
By SEUNG MIN KIM and BURGESS EVERETT
10/03/2017 12:44 PM EDT
Updated 10/03/2017 05:11 PM EDT
Democrats left a dinner last month with President Donald Trump enthusiastically touting a deal for “Dreamers.” Republicans who dined at the White House on Monday say Democrats may want to check the fine print.
Influential GOP lawmakers say Trump laid out a much more expansive and rigid set of demands Trump wants from Congress in any agreement to turn the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program into law.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he made the case to Trump that funding for a border wall should be part of any legislative package on DACA. Asked if Trump agreed, McCarthy said yes — which would go counter to an agreement that Democratic leaders thought they had struck last month.
One other new requirement, according to one Republican senator who attended: Congress needs to pass a bill that addresses solely the current population of DACA recipients, rather than a broader circle of young undocumented immigrants.
“The president was very clear. Any effort to codify DACA needs to, one, be limited to DACA so the first criteria under the law should be you have a DACA permit today,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said in an interview Tuesday. “Second, any deal has to end chain migration. And then third, it ought to include some kind of enhanced measures, whether it’s on the border or interior enforcement or what have you.”
Trump’s latest wish list is a far cry from the basic border-security-for-Dream-Act exchange that he laid out to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) during their own dinner last month.
And it could spell trouble for the prospects of reaching an immigration deal with Democrats, whose votes will be needed to pass any Dreamer bills but will be reluctant to swallow any dramatic enforcement measures or other restrictive provisions.
“If the president is changing his view, he should tell us. I’ve talked to the president, I’ve talked to Gen. [John] Kelly, about continuing on the path that we all agreed to indisputably," Schumer said Tuesday. "If they want to continue on that path, great. If they want to back off, let them tell us."
But if Trump insists on addressing just the current DACA recipients in any legislation, that would rule out bills such as the Dream Act from Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and the Succeed Act from Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.). Both bills would cover a much broader population than the estimated 690,000 who currently hold DACA permits.
“They didn’t have a deal,” stressed Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), who also attended Monday night’s dinner at the White House, about Pelosi and Schumer.
Cornyn said Trump would “like to find a solution for these young adults” and laid out some suggestions. Cotton and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) also lobbied Trump on including their plan to overhaul the current green card system and slash legal immigration limits in a DACA deal.
The Texas Republican said he expects the White House to send Congress a proposal outlining what it would like to see in DACA legislation as early as this week.
“So I think there is a way to come up with a resolution, a legislative solution on the DACA situation,” Cornyn said Tuesday. “We’re consulting with the White House, but we are an independent branch and we’re trying to come up with ideas that we think would be acceptable that Democrats and Republicans would fix it.”
Perdue said the lawmakers also discussed including E-Verify provisions — a workplace system that checks whether an employee is here legally — during the dinner, which was also attended by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.).
Democrats would likely oppose that since it would not be paired with a broader legalization program and could ensnare undocumented immigrants who would otherwise not be identified. Schumer said Tuesday that Democrats were "explicit" during their meeting that interior enforcement provisions such as E-Verify would not be a part of the immigration agreement.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who will play a critical role in any immigration deal, laid out his own parameters for a DACA deal on Tuesday — chief among them border security, but “by that I don’t mean a wall.”
The Iowa Republican also will insist on robust interior enforcement measures like making E-Verify mandatory for all employers. Grassley said lawmakers need to “take a hard look” at backlogs in the immigration courts and asylum system so that federal officials can speed up deportations “while preserving lawful claims for those truly in need.”
“It would be a dereliction of our duty if we fail to take steps to end at least some of the illegal immigration as we know it, and kick the can down the road so that a future Congress has to address this very same problem again in another 15 years,” Grassley said. “I’m confident that if everyone is reasonable, we can find a solution.”
Rachael Bade contributed to this report.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/1...blicans-243410
