Senators have deal, White House balks

WASHINGTON — Three Republican and three Democratic senators said Thursday they had reached an election-year accord to protect hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation and to bolster border security. But the White House and several GOP lawmakers said they had not accepted the proposal, plunging the issue back into uncertainty just eight days before a deadline that threatens a government shutdown.

Two of the bargainers — No. 2 Senate Democrat Richard Durbin of Illinois and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. — traveled to the White House early Thursday to shop their framework to President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. The pact includes restrictions on immigrants’ abilities to bring relatives to the U.S. and termination of a visa lottery system that has helped gain entry for people from African and other diverse countries.

“I’m hopeful it will lead to a breakthrough,” Graham, who has forged a close relationship with Trump despite their prior political rivalry, told reporters afterward.

But in an afternoon of drama and confusing developments, three other GOP lawmakers — including two hardliners on immigration — were in Trump’s office for Thursday’s meeting and said it did not produce the results Graham and Durbin were hoping for.

“There has not been a deal reached yet,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. But she added, “We haven’t quite gotten there, but we feel like we’re close.”