Senate debate opens on migrants
Future of ‘Dreamers,’ Trump’s wall at stake
WASHINGTON — The Senate opened a rare, freewheeling debate Monday night that could determine the fate of millions of undocumented immigrants, many of them in California, who arrived in the country as minors.
President Trump has agreed to support a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants, more than twice as many as enrolled in an Obama administration program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, that protects them from deportation. Trump intends to end the program March 5. About a third of DACA recipients reside in California, more than in any other state.
In exchange, the administration wants three things that are anathema to Democrats: a wall on about 700 miles of the border with Mexico; termination of the diversity visa lottery that provides 50,000 visas each year to immigrants
from countries that send comparatively few people to the United States; and elimination of future immigrants’ ability to sponsor relatives for admission to the U.S. besides their spouses and minor children. Barred from sponsorship eligibility would be immigrants’ parents, siblings and adult children.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., put the empty shell of a bill on the floor that will serve as the vehicle for all proposals, which senators will enter as amendments. To have any chance of passage, an amendment will need a 60-vote supermajority.
Republicans hold a narrow 51-49 majority, ensuring that any legislation will need substantial Democratic support. The Senate has not used such a procedure in recent memory. The party in power almost never puts legislation on the floor that lacks majority support from its own members.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who for the past 17 years has sought to protect the young undocumented immigrants through various iterations of his Dream Act, giving them the moniker “Dreamers.”
The first amendment submitted Monday reflects the “four pillars” that Trump has called for — beefed-up border security that includes $25 billion for the wall, an end to the diversity lottery, an end to familybased migration and a path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants.
It is sponsored by seven Republicans, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley of Iowa and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican. The sponsors argued that theirs is the only bill that can pass the conservativedominated House, get Trump’s signature and become law.
Pro-immigration activists insisted that the White House plan stands no chance of passage, given broad opposition by Democrats and a substantial minority of pro-immigration Republicans, led by Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. They argued that a “two-pillar” bipartisan amendment that provides a citizenship path for the young immigrants and some increase in border security is the only legislation that can pass.
“The White House proposal is dead on arrival in the Senate, because it may get 30 to 40 Republican votes, but it will be lucky to get any Democratic votes,” said Frank Sharry, founder and executive director of America’s Voice, a pro-immigration group.
Dreamer activists have been applying increasing political pressure on Democrats to deliver for them. Democrats seen as potential presidential contenders have made the issue a priority, with California’s Sen. Kamala Harris being the first in her party to insist on tying legal status for the Dreamers to must-pass spending bills. The Democrats pulled back from that strategy after a three-day partial shutdown of the federal government last month.
Republicans, for their part, are divided between their shrinking pro-immigration wing, backed by business and farm groups that want more workers, and their growing restrictionist wing, represented by Trump and dominant in the House. In addition to Graham, the pro-immigration GOP wing includes Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona and Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who is pushing for a big expansion of the H-1B visas for skilled technology workers.
Other GOP moderates led by Sen. Susan Collins of Maine have formed a bipartisan group to come up with its own plan.
Sharry said he was confident that Democrats would stick together in opposing cuts to legal immigration and a border wall.
“Democrats have very strong views on this,” Sharry said. “They believe strongly that this fight is about protecting Dreamers, not about paying a ransom to conservatives who are trying to exploit the desperation that we all feel about this in order to enact an agenda that could never pass on its own.”
Immigration restrictionists are pressuring the administration to hold the line. They contend that the administration has already given away too much by proposing to allow current immigrants to continue to sponsor their relatives. The backlog of roughly 4 million pending applications for extended-family visa applications would take 15 years to whittle down.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that wants to restrict immigration, expects quite a long delay.
“They won’t finish working through this backlog until Kamala Harris’ successor in the White House takes over,” he said.
Family visas account for most of the current 1.2 million legal immigrants who enter the country each year. The rest hold various forms of work visas.
Rosemary Jenks, government affairs director for Numbers USA, another restrictionist group, said it is possible that no amendment will get 60 votes.
“I think a lot of this depends on what the White House does this week,” Jenks said. “If they are being very vocal about their opposition or support for particular proposals, that may make a difference.”
Sharry said any bill that Democrats could support would need “at least” 11 or 12 Republicans to pass.
Another wild card is the 10 Democrats running for reelection in states Trump won in 2016. Many of these Democrats abandoned the Harris strategy of tying legal status for the young immigrants to spending bills, voting to reopen the government instead. Democrats did, however, secure McConnell’s promise to hold an open debate on immigration.
“We were putting a lot of pressure on Democrats because it was our best shot to have them use their leverage to include the Dream Act on a mustpass appropriations bill,” Sharry said. “We were not very keen to have a stand-alone legislative fight because of the fact that Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House is occupied by a nativist.
“The idea that a stand-alone legislative process is the best route to Dreamer relief seemed fraught at best,” Sharry said. “But here we are.”