CLOCK TICKING ON DACA DEAL
Fixing immigration issues could block govt shutdown
WASHINGTON — Congress returns this week with the clock running down on efforts to save a program protecting young immigrants brought here illegally as children as part of the bill to keep the government funded.
With Democrats demanding a path to citizenship as part of any solution for those covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that President Trump nixed last year, and Trump demanding funding for his border wall, it’s unclear how or if the sides can come together. Failing to do so by Jan. 19 could mean a government shutdown.
“We want the wall. The wall is going to happen or we’re not going to have DACA,” Trump said Saturday after meeting with congressional Republicans at Camp David. That demand is a nonstarter for congressional Democrats, whose support would be required to pass a DACA fix.
But advocates and strategists on both sides of the issue expressed some confidence that a fix for DACA could be worked out, pointing to the midterm elections as a strong incentive to those in both parties.
“I’m still confident we can get a DACA fix. But I am worried about the cost,” said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum.
His concern is about efforts by Trump and some congressional lawmakers to include issues not related to immigrants brought into this country by their parents as children who were covered under the program Trump scuttled in September. Those issues include efforts to nix some forms of legal immigration such as family reunification, called “chain migration” by Trump and other opponents, and the green card diversity lottery system.
Noorani expressed worry that “we are playing checkers while (White House senior adviser) Stephen Miller is setting up a chess board culminating in the end of this kind of legal immigration.”
But conservatives said any deal struck on DACA that does not significantly boost border security should be a nonstarter for Republicans, and Democrats to push back against it could be in peril in the midterms.
“Trump ran on this issue,” GOP strategist Greg Mueller said of border security. “Trump pulled some of their (Democrats’) base right from under them — union workers. They are not big fans of open borders. So I think the Democrats have more to lose politically if they draw too hard of a line.”
Some immigration advocates agreed that a deal would likely involve boosted border security, including some measures to buttress physical barriers such as reinforcing fences and augmenting other existing structures.
“Democrats will say, ‘We did not cave on a wall,’ because it’s not going to be a concrete wall,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an immigration reform organization. “Donald Trump will say, ‘I got my wall.’ ”