Trump, Republicans meet on immigration
Senators from both parties address family separation as Trump stands his ground
Senate Republicans on Tuesday attempted to wrest some control over the administration’s policy of separating children from their migrant parents. Despite the mounting political backlash, President Donald Trump publicly held firm, warning that those illegally crossing the border “infest our Country.” Late in the day, Trump met at the Capitol with House Republicans about their proposals for a comprehensive immigration law, but left without giving party leaders the full endorsement they sought for their bill.
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans mobilized Tuesday to end the administration’s policy of separating children from their migrant parents — and the mounting political backlash — as President Donald Trump publicly held firm, warning on Twitter that those illegally crossing the border “infest our Country.”
Yet cracks appeared in the White House’s hard line as well, as outrage against the policy built amid continued media coverage of children penned in government detention centers.
An administration official suggested the president might sign a narrow bill to address the issue, despite his public demands that any measure include $25 billion for his border wall and new limits on legal immigration.
“The president wants a comprehensive fix,” the official stressed, adding, “but he is willing to strongly consider legislation that would address the separation issue.”
Late in the day Trump met at the Capitol with House Republicans about their proposals for a comprehensive immigration bill. After rambling remarks, including familiar recollections about his 2016 victory, he spoke little of the family-separation controversy or immigration policy generally, and left without giving party leaders the full endorsement they sought for their bill, according to accounts from those in the room.
Hours earlier, in a partisan speech to a friendly small business organization, Trump stuck to his demand that Congress address the crisis as part of a wide-ranging immigration bill that includes money for a border wall. He ignored calls, including from Republicans, that he could end his own six-week-old policy simply with a word.
Faced with the president’s resistance to act, however, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters at the Capitol that Senate Republicans would devise “a plan that keeps families together.”
The plan seems likely to accomplish that by detaining families as a whole, not by allowing them to be free pending a hearing.
McConnell’s deputy, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, said the Senate could act “in a matter of days, hopefully this week.” More than a dozen Senate Republicans signed a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions urging that he suspend separations until a legislative fix can be signed into law.
“I don’t think anyone has the patience to let him hold children hostage for a wall,” one senior Republican aide in the Senate said. “He can get that funding the oldfashioned way, through a budget request.”
It remained unclear, however, that House Republicans would go along. And Senate Democrats, believing they have the upper hand politically, are resisting giving Republicans help to fix the issue.
“Legislation is not the way to go here, when it’s so easy for the president to sign it,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters.
More Republicans echoed that sentiment, even as they searched for legislative fixes.
“The White House could change it in five minutes, and they should. It’s a mistake. It’s a change in policy by this administration,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, a senior Republican from Tennessee.
All Senate Democrats have endorsed a bill by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, while Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican facing re-election in Texas, where the crisis is playing out, has proposed a separate measure. The proposals, in different ways, would prevent the Department of Homeland Security from separating children from their parents at the border.
Trump, in his earlier remarks to the National Federation of Independent Business, reiterated that he doesn’t want families split, yet defended the policy as putting a stop to “thousands” of child smugglers crossing the border.
Trump, in his speech, assailed proposals — like Cruz’s — to provide more immigration judges to expedite the backlog of asylum cases at the border. His Justice Department recently announced it was sending 18 additional judges to the border region, however, and Cruz’s bill calls for hundreds more.
“I don’t want judges. I want border security,” Trump said in an attack on the longstanding immigration courts system. “We have to have a real border. Not judges. Thousands and thousands of judges they want to hire. Who are these people?”
As he has throughout the controversy, Trump attempted to blame Democrats even though his administration formally announced the policy in May, after considering it since the early days of Trump’s presidency. The administration opted to shift to a zero tolerance approach with asylum seekers, believing that the separation of immigrant parents and children would serve as a deterrent to illegal immigration.
With Republicans in control of the White House and Congress, however, bridging their differences is essential to getting any immigration legislation into law, and that didn’t seem any closer after Tuesday’s events.