Deal or no deal? Dreamers wait as Trump, Congress joust
WASHINGTON — The fate of 800,000 young immigrants hung in the balance Thursday as top lawmakers, White House officials and President Donald Trump himself squabbled over whether an agreement had been struck to protect them — and if so, exactly what it was.
In the face of an intense backlash from conservatives inside the Capitol and out, Speaker Paul Ryan and other GOP House members adamantly insisted there was no agreement to enshrine protections for the immigrants brought to America as children and now here illegally.
John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, put it this way: There was “a deal to make a deal.”
Trump himself said he was “fairly close” to an agreement that could protect the young “Dreamers” while also adding border security, as long as his long-promised wall with Mexico was also separately addressed. Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer — whose dinner with Trump Wednesday night was at the heart of the controversy — insisted there was discussion and even agreement on legislation that would offer eventual citizenship to the immigrants in question.
“We agreed it would be the DREAM Act,” Schumer told reporters, referring to a bipartisan bill that would allow immigrants brought here as children and now in the U.S. illegally to work their way to citizenship in as little as five years if they met certain requirements.
What was clear was that the outcome for the “Dreamers” themselves was still unresolved and subject to much further debate and negotiation — and that the politics of immigration, which have defeated Congress for years, remained as tricky and explosive as ever. After winning the White House on a campaign that was remarkably harsh toward immigrants and revolved around construction of an enormous wall along the entire border with Mexico, Trump’s sudden pivot infuriated some of his closest allies and seemed to contain more potential to alienate his base than any of his other unconventional moves.
“He was so explicit during the campaign on the issue of the border wall and border security that if he were to backtrack on that promise I don’t think he’d have a single friend left in the country. Democrats aren’t going to support him, and he would lose the entire Republican base,” said GOP Rep. Tom McClintock of California. “This was a core, explicit and graphically clear promise he made to the American people.”
“At this point, who DOESN’T want Trump impeached?” conservative commentator Ann Coulter remarked over Twitter.
Administration officials quickly recognized the danger in the backlash, and the White House shifted into damage control mode, with press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders denying a deal had been struck or the wall was excluded from it. Some also wondered aloud on Thursday whether the president was aware of the minutiae of the DREAM Act legislation discussed on Wednesday, including the fact that it includes an eventual path to citizenship.
“We’re not looking at citizenship, we’re not looking at amnesty. We’re looking at allowing people to stay here,” Trump told reporters as he traveled to view hurricane damage in Florida. “And we’re working with everybody. Republican. We’re working with Democrat.”
“But very importantly, what we want: We have to have a wall,” Trump said. “If we don’t have a wall, we’re doing nothing.”
Despite Trump’s denial, two people briefed on Wednesday night’s proceedings said citizenship was explicitly mentioned when Democrats raised the DREAM Act. Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, who was among the group dining on Chinese food in the White House Blue Room, spoke up that the bill does include citizenship, according to the people briefed, who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose the private proceedings.
Whether or how Trump digested Mulvaney’s statement was unclear. But the posture struck by Ryan and others on Capitol Hill seemed designed to protect the president from backlash from his conservative base. Ryan energetically disputed the idea any deal had been struck, though his argument seemed to turn largely on semantic distinctions.
“These were discussions. not negotiations. There isn’t an agreement,” Ryan said. “The president wasn’t negotiating a deal last night. The president was talking with Democratic leaders to get their perspective. I think the president understands that he’s going to have to work with the congressional majorities to get any kind of legislative solution.”
Trump gave Congress six months to come up with a solution before the protections would end, although what he would actually do absent congressional action is uncertain.