Thread: Senators, White House lay groundwork for Dreamers deal

Politico
Senators, White House lay groundwork for Dreamers deal

Donald Trump's chief of staff met Tuesday with lawmakers from both parties, and a compromise looks likely in January.

By SEUNG MIN KIM, HEATHER CAYGLE and ELANA SCHOR
12/19/2017 08:40 PM EST


Top senators and White House officials are laying the groundwork for a major immigration deal in January to resolve the fate of young undocumented immigrants whose legal protections were put in limbo by President Donald Trump.

At a Tuesday afternoon meeting with nearly a dozen senators deeply involved in immigration policy, White House chief of staff John Kelly pledged that the administration will soon present a list of border security and other policy changes it wants as part of a broader deal on so-called Dreamers, according to people who attended the meeting. The plan could come in a matter of days, senators said.

About a half-dozen senators have been negotiating a bipartisan package prompted by Trump’s decision to kill the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, an Obama-era executive action that granted work permits to nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants who came here as minors.

Yet the senators could not fully flesh out a deal before they knew what Trump was willing to sign.
“We couldn’t finish this product, this bill, until we knew where the administration was,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who has been negotiating a DACA compromise for weeks, said in an interview after the meeting with Kelly. “And that’s why this meeting was so important.”

Congressional Republicans and the White House have long said any DACA deal would need to be paired with security and other enforcement measures. Democrats say that's fine as long as the provisions weren’t too onerous. But the border security question has been a sticking point for weeks, as senators swapped proposals without cutting a deal, so far.

And while liberal Democrats and grass-roots activists are pressuring Congress to enact permanent legal protections for Dreamers this year, both Democrats and Republicans at the meeting with Kelly said there was a consensus that legislation wouldn’t pass before lawmakers leave Washington. It was one of the clearest sign yet that a Dreamers agreement won't, to the chagrin of liberals, come before 2018.

Flake said he believes he has a commitment from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to hold a cloture vote on the floor on an immigration deal by mid-January, before the next likely deadline to fund the government, Jan. 19.

A spokesman for McConnell did not immediately return a request for comment. But the majority leader said during a Fox News interview that he has talked about the immigration issue with his counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

“No, we’ll not be doing DACA … this week,” McConnell said. “That’s a matter to be discussed next year. The president has given us until March to address that issue. We have plenty of time to do it.”

At the Tuesday meeting, Kelly and other administration officials went into detail about how much of the southern border is currently fenced and how much more the White House would want in exchange for a DACA deal, according to people who attended.

Senators also pressed the White House on other immigration demands, such as an overhaul of the nation’s asylum system or a change in policy toward unaccompanied minors who are apprehended at the southern border, and whether they needed to be included in the current DACA talks.

“Which of those policy items, or immigration law changes, do we need to make as part of this and what can wait for something else?” Flake said, summing up the questions from senators. “There’s a lot of nice things we need to do as part of broader comprehensive reform, but we need to have a bill in January and we need to know what has to be in it and what the administration will support.”

The bipartisan group of senators — Flake and Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) — has discussed a legalization plan that would marry the DREAM Act, drafted by Durbin and Graham, with a more conservative proposal for Dreamers written by Tillis and Lankford, Flake said.

Those seven senators attended Tuesday’s meeting with Kelly, as did Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia.

“I think what we’re trying to do is to get some clarity from the administration on what they require by way of border security and other enforcement measures,” Cornyn said as he left the meeting. “We got a promise to provide it to us and hopefully we’ll get that in short order. Maybe even this week.”

Republicans’ commitment to taking up a DACA deal next month won’t spare Democrats the fury of liberal groups that have demanded that any spending bill this year include a solution for Dreamers.
Democratic leaders have signaled that they won’t risk a government shutdown this month to secure relief for the Dreamers, though some lawmakers have vowed to withhold their votes for any must-pass funding measure without an immigration fix.

Durbin, the influential second-ranking Senate Democrat, is firmly in the camp of senators who won't vote for a spending bill without help for Dreamers. That group also includes liberal Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Durbin acknowledged Tuesday, in response to a reporter's question, that there “may be” a divide between him and Schumer over how hard of a line to draw on the issue.

Schumer, for his part, put Republicans on notice Tuesday that they shouldn’t count on Democratic votes for a short-term funding package that includes just some of Democrats' priorities — such as children’s health insurance — while leaving immigration for next year.

In the House, lawmakers, including several in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, privately say they don’t see a path to secure a legislative fix for Dreamers before the end of the year. They acknowledge that the sides are now positioning themselves for a fight in January.

Rest of the article here:

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/19/senate-white-house-trump-lay-groundwork-for-daca-deal-306298

Oh sure, go ahead, tear our country apart over people who aren't even supposed to be here. That's a real swell idea. You need to remember the symbol of the Republican Party is the Elephant, who never forgets. You try this stunt over these stupid radical illegal aliens, and none of you will ever hold public office again, not on a Republican ballot.

DACA fix compromise as soon as tonight, GOP rep says

Never before have we seen such concerted advocacy and lobbying for foreign citizens. This is a shame and national disgrace to whoever these officials are who keep piping up for any foreign citizen in this country illegally. And a lot of them are the same ones who complained about foreign influence under previous administrations.

So they are talking about kicking the can only a few inches down the road again by passing a Continuing Resolution to keep the government open to Jan 19 this time??? Wow, just wow. These people running DC stink!

We need to ask our dear good Republicans to unite and pass a law that at any time a budget isn't passed and funding secured for a fiscal year by September 30 for the fiscal year that starts on October 1, they will receive zero congressional salaries for 6 months effective November 1 of that year. Let them go through hurricanes, fall semester college tuition, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, winter semester tuitions, Spring Breaks, Santa Anas, wild fires, April 15 tax day, and life in general WITHOUT their Congressional paychecks as a deserved penalty for not doing their jobs properly and on time.

The bipartisan group of senators — Flake and Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) — has discussed a legalization plan that would marry the DREAM Act, drafted by Durbin and Graham, with a more conservative proposal for Dreamers written by Tillis and Lankford, Flake said.

Wow, the worst of the worst on immigration from both parties. This is not looking good.

After reading the article I came away feeling like General John Kelly has convinced Trump to tone down his rhetoric and accept less than he was originally asking for on a DACA deal. Of course why am I not surprised because this is a page right out of Trump's book, The Art of the Deal. Ask for the moon but be willing to accept much less as long as it accomplishes the ultimate goal. That ultimate goal is an amnesty DACA!

Flake is trying to do so much damage on his way out the door. It'll be amazing (but not surprising) if Trump betrays his base to placate a lame duck Senator and other open borders senators who have bashed him.

Get ready for the BS talking points about amnesty now for "enhanced border security" (i.e. drones on the border and perhaps limited curtailing of chain migration sometime in the future) -- with no talk of mandatory nationwide E-Verify, full wall funding and an end to chain migration BEFORE any legalization.

Call Now to Shut Down Pelosi's Sneaky Christmas Amnesty Plot
https://www.alipac.us/f8/call-now-shut-down-pelosis-sneaky-christmas-amnesty-plot-353561/

The New Dirty Gang of Seven.

The bipartisan group of senators — Flake and Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) — has discussed a legalization plan that would marry the DREAM Act, drafted by Durbin and Graham, with a more conservative proposal for Dreamers written by Tillis and Lankford, Flake said.