Senate rejects Trump’s immigration proposal
Both Dems and Republicans nix tougher immigration law that also helped ‘Dreamers’
WASHINGTON— In a stern rebuke to President Donald Trump, the Senate on Thursday decisively rejected a White House rewrite of the nation’s immigration laws that would have bolstered border security, placed strict limits on legal migration and resolved the fate of the “Dreamers.”
The measure by Sen. Charles E. Grassley was patterned after one the White House proposed, but the 3960 vote was 21 votes short of the 60 votes required for the Senate to consider it. Trump had threatened to veto any other approach.
The rejection was bipartisan: Democrats refused its get-tough approach to legal immigration, while many conservative Republicans opposed its pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
What happens now in the Senate immigration debate is unclear. Before the vote on the White House plan, senators turned away two more modest measures to protect young immigrants. Neither the plan drafted by a broad group of centrists nor one written by Sens. John McCain and Chris Coons secured 60 votes.
The White House-backed measure would have severely limited “chain migration,” more commonly known as family-based immigration, and would have ended the diversity visa lottery program, two priorities of the president that are anathema to Democrats. It would also have provided $25 billion for the border wall the president has proposed building along the southern border.
Trump had said the White Housebacked measure was the only one he would sign.
In a conference call with reporters just before voting began, a senior White House official lashed out at Sen. Lindsey Graham, a key sponsor of an alternative measure. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the official accused Graham of attacking Homeland Security officials and standing in the way of needed immigration changes.