Decision phasing out DACA blocked as Trump urges deal
‘Bill of love’ proposed on immigration at bipartisan meeting
WASHINGTON — A federal judge temporarily ordered the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to remain in place late Tuesday, hours after President Donald Trump said in a freewheeling exchange with a bipartisan group of lawmakers that an elusive deal to protect young immigrants brought into the country illegally as children could be within reach.
“It should be a bill of love,” Trump said in a rare, live televised encounter with lawmakers from both parties. “Truly, it should be a bill of love. But it also has to be a bill where we’re able to secure our border. Drugs are pouring into our country at a record pace. A lot of people coming in that we can’t have.”
The unexpected proposal on immigration policy emerged as lawmakers worked to hammer out a compromise spending bill that would avoid a government shutdown on Jan. 20.
Democratic leaders warned, however, that with 10 days left before government funding runs dry, Trump’s demand for an $18 billion border wall could be an impediment to a broader compromise.
They have demanded a “clean” legislative fix that provides protections for the Obama-era DACA program, which Trump has slated
to end in March.
In another twist, U.S. District Judge William Alsup issued a 49-page order stating the DACA program should continue “on a nationwide basis on the same terms and conditions,” as existed before it was rescinded. Under his order, those currently enrolled in the program are able to renew their enrollments, but new applications would not be processed.
Furthermore, a DACA participant who “poses a risk to national security or public safety” could still be removed from the country, according to the judge.
Alsup noted that Trump last September expressed his support for DACA in a tweet. “Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military? Really! . .,” Trump tweeted.
Alsup went on to say: “For the reasons DACA was instituted, and for the reasons tweeted by President Trump, this order finds that the public interest will be served by DACA’s continuation” with conditions. “Beginning March 5, absent an injunction, one thousand individuals per day, on average, will lose their DACA protection. The rescission will result in hundreds of thousands of individuals losing their work authorizations and deferred action status.
With lawmakers scrambling to avoid a government shutdown, both sides in a White House meeting committed to striking a deal that would protect DACA’s 800,000 so-called Dreamers, of whom about 124,000 are in Texas and 80,000 in Houston. But it remained to be seen whether that must include money for border security, which for Trump means a wall — his signature campaign promise.
“You can’t have one without the other,” Trump said. “I’d love not to build a wall, but you need a wall.”
If there was any agreement in the wide-ranging encounter, which cast Trump as part coach and partisan referee, it was that more sweeping changes to the nation’s immigration system should come later as part of a two-phase approach.
As part of a comprehensive immigration deal, Republicans have sought to beef up border security, crack down on “sanctuary cities” that they say protect immigrants living here illegally, and limit legal immigration. That would include new restrictions on family preferences, sometimes termed “chain migration,” and ending the global visa lottery system.
The starting point for the new push on DACA is expected to take shape in legislation to be unveiled Wednesday by House Republicans, including Houston-area Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
“This is a bipartisan issue,” McCaul told Trump. “DACA is a bipartisan issue. We have an opportunity before us to get this done for the American people.”
But McCaul, like other Republicans, added that border security must be part of the deal.
“What we don’t want to see happen, is for the conditions of DACA to occur again,” he said. “We want to get security done so we don’t have to deal with this problem five more years down the road.”
Trump expressed optimism about cutting a deal, though he seemed to leave it to Congress to work out the details. “I am very much reliant on the people in this room,” he said.
‘Clock is ticking’
Texas U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, the senior congressional Republican in the meeting, cautioned that negotiations would mean little without Trump’s buy-in.
“The lens that we need to be looking through is not only what can we agree to among ourselves on a bipartisan basis, but what will you sign into law,” Cornyn said. “We all want to get to a solution here, and I think we realize the clock is ticking.”
On Monday, Cornyn had accused Democrats of holding “hostage” any agreement on a spending bill by tying it to a deal on Dreamers.
Democrats said that while they support border security, controversial measures like the wall will have to be set aside to reach a deal on DACA, which they are demanding as part of a 2018 funding bill.
Making the case against Trump’s wall, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo, argued that the majority of immigrants living here illegally overstay their visas and most of the drug traffic comes in through ports of entry, not over remote border terrain.
“You can put the most beautiful wall out there, and it’s not going to stop them,” Cuellar told Trump.
Although Trump has backed off his earlier promises of a wall the length of the nearly 2,000-mile southwest border — noting that natural barriers like rivers and mountains already afford some protection — he has stuck to his insistence that Mexico will pay for it “in some form.”
One of the wall’s most outspoken critics, Brownsville Democrat Filemon Vela, did not participate in the White House summit, which included about two dozen members of Congress. But in an interview, he questioned the Republicans’ commitment to a deal on DACA, noting that legislation providing a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers has languished for months in Congress.
“The Republicans talk a good game when it comes to Dreamers,” he said, “but then they do nothing.”
Though Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, Democrats have significant leverage in the Senate, where Republicans hold a narrow margin of 51 out of 100 seats. That means they would need at least nine Democratic votes to push a budget deal through the Senate, given the 60vote requirement to break a filibuster.
Democrats also want an agreement on new budget caps providing similar increases in domestic and military spending. Republicans are holding out for a boost to defense spending only.
Disaster aid
Both sides say they are committed to an $81 billion disaster relief package for the victims of Hurricane Harvey and other natural disasters. That money, along with a number of other spending measures, has become bound up in a broader budget deal, for which immigration and border security have become the most contentious issues.
Trump’s $18 billion wall request, sent to the Senate on Friday, would add 316 miles of walls and fencing along the border, adding some 407 miles of existing barriers.
Critics of the wall proposal argue that the wall project, now in the prototype phase, could crowd out more effective border security measures.
The New York Times, which obtained a 2019 internal budget guidance memo, reported that proposed offsets included funding cuts for a remote video surveillance system in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, an area heavily trafficked by border crossers and drug smugglers.
Trump’s wall plan goes further than a number of border security proposals offered by a number of Texas lawmakers, who have emphasized a host of human and technological strategies along the border.
Cornyn and McCaul both unveiled legislation last year calling for $15 billion for a combination of technology, law enforcement and barriers on the southern border, though they would also fund parts of a wall or fence.
While Trump sought to show flexibility on Tuesday, his remarks followed months of seemingly contradictory statements on Dreamers, who he once said “shouldn’t be very worried. I do have a big heart.”
But on Saturday, at a Republican retreat at Camp David, he laid down a marker that rekindled concerns. “The wall is going to happen,” he said, “or we’re not going to have DACA.”