Tillis no longer part of key Senate negotiations on Dreamers
Tillis no longer part of key Senate negotiations on Dreamers
BY ANITA KUMAR
akumar@mcclatchydc.com
JANUARY 04, 2018 04:36 PM
UPDATED 1 MINUTE AGO
WASHINGTON Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who has sought to make immigration one of his signature issues, is no longer involved in key bipartisan Senate negotiations over how to protect hundreds of thousands of immigrants who will soon lose their renewable work permits.
Tillis has not been at meetings of the working group for several weeks, according to four people familiar with the negotiations, many of whom blame his staff for discussing private talks, being unresponsive or misrepresenting the senator’s own immigration bill.
The senators, who have met dozens of times over the last two months, including every day leading up to the holiday recess, are widely expected to craft the immigration compromise that will protect Dreamers while increasing border security.
The group, which includes Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Cory Gardner of Colorado and Democrats Dick Durbin of Illinois and Michael Bennet of Colorado met for an hour Wednesday night at the Capitol. Tillis did not attend, according to people familiar with the meeting. Two other original Republican members, John Cornyn of Texas and James Lankford of Oklahoma, also did not attend, they say.
One of the people familiar with the situation blamed a Tillis staffer for discussing what the senators were negotiating after they had all agreed not to speak to anyone else about it.
Another said senators have been irked with a different Tillis staffer for weeks for portraying the senator’s bill as more conservative than it is. A third person blamed Tillis’ staff for being unresponsive, saying Republican members of the group made a decision to move ahead with or without Tillis.
The senators “would very much like to see Tillis as part of the negotiation, but question his fortitude to take on what he may perceive as a tough issue,” the third person said.
Tillis spokesman Daniel Keylin said the senator has not left the group and did not respond to questions about staff. “Tillis never left the working group, and we have recently attempted to engage with Senate Democrats to continue discussions,” he said. “Unfortunately we have not heard back.”
OVER THE COURSE OF THE LAST SEVERAL WEEKS, WE HAVE NEGOTIATED IN GOOD FAITH WITH SENATE DEMOCRATS ON A DACA AGREEMENT. UNFORTUNATELY, OUR DISCUSSIONS ON BORDER SECURITY AND ENFORCEMENT WITH DEMOCRATS ARE MUCH FURTHER APART, AND THAT IS KEY TO GETTING A BIPARTISAN DEAL ON DACA. UNTIL THAT HAPPENS, WE CANNOT ACCOMPLISH THE SOLUTIONS OUR COUNTRY NEEDS AND MANY FAMILIES DESERVE
Sens Thom Tillis, R-N.C. and James Lankford, R-Oklahoma
The senators began meeting in November after Tillis introduced the “SUCCEED Act,” dubbed a conservative Dream Act, designed to provide a path to permanent residency to people brought to the United States illegally as children. It did not address other immigration issues.
Several conservative immigration groups, including Federation for American Immigration Reform and Numbers USA, had been asking North Carolinians through emails and social media to contact Tillis’ office to urge him not to participate in a group that doesn’t address their key immigration issues, including chain migration that allows immigrants to help get other immigrants into the United States, the State Department’s diversity visa lottery program that allows immigrants to be awarded green cards, and E-verify, an online system that allows businesses to check immigration status.
Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA, which advocates for greater immigration enforcement, described the news about Tillis as “fantastic,” saying North Carolinians had made their voices heard.
Tillis has left the more moderate bipartisan group to align himself with a Republican-only group led by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, according to one of the people familiar with the negotiations.
Grassley introduced a bill last month that offered protections for Dreamers while increasing border security, targeting sanctuary cities that refuse to comply with immigration laws, bolstering e-verify and cracking down on chain migration.
RJ Hauman, FAIR’s government relations director, said the bipartisan working group supports “mass amnesty proposals” while delivering “nothing of significance” on immigration for the American people.
“Such a proposal would be a hard sell for Sen. Tillis down in North Carolina,” he said. “It is heartening to see Sen. Tillis work with Sen. Grassley’s Republican working group instead, as they have shown a commitment to the reforms outlined in the Trump administration’s immigration principles.”
Durbin’s proposal to the Republican members in December stripped out many border security measures, including money for additional enforcement agents and physical barriers, a GOP aide said.
Tillis was among the senators invited to the White HouseThursday to meet with President Donald Trump along with other Republicans of the Judiciary Committee, including Grassley, Lankford, Cornyn, Cotton and Graham. Trump will hold a similar meeting next week with Democrats and Republicans, according to the White House.
View image on Twitterhttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/DSuIEFHV4AE6uQj.jpg:small“Hopefully, everything is going to work out very well,” Trump told the senators. “We really want it to work out. I can tell you the Republicans want to see it work out very well. If we have support from the Democrats, I think DACA is going to be terrific....We really are at a point where I think we could do something spectacular for the people on the border, the people coming through.”
Tillis praised Trump’s leadership on immigration. “When we've got the opportunity to provide a solution, achieve your objectives, and do something good for the DACA population, then I think we should.” Tillis told Trump.
Keylin later described the White House meeting as productive. “While it’s normal for negotiations to hit speeds bumps along the way, it’s imperative that Democrats accept the White House’s invitation to join Republicans next week and continue to work together to deliver on a border security and DACA compromise,” he said.
The administration announced in September it will shut down the program — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA — March 5, giving Congress time to pass a legislative fix. Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the program an unconstitutional use of executive authority as they were been threatened with lawsuits from Texas and other states.
This week, three former Homeland Security secretaries warned lawmakers that a bill needed to pass this month in order to put a program in place to protect the immigrants brought into the country as children. Some lawmakers of both parties are pushing for a legislative fix to be part of deal for Democratic support of a spending package that must be passed by Jan. 19 to keep most of the government operating.
Spokesmen at the offices of Cornyn, Graham, Bennet and Durbin, the Senate Minority Whip and a leader for Senate Democrats on Dreamers, declined to comment.
Other did not return phone calls.
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