U.S. senators reach immigration agreement
Breakthrough comes days before spending deadline Democrats used as leverage
WASHINGTON— A bipartisan group of senators working to resolve the status of young undocumented immigrants, border security and restrictions on legal migration programs has offered an opening bid on an immigration agreement and is seeking sign-off from the White House, according to aides familiar with the talks.
Aides to Republican Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a longtime GOP broker on immigration policy, said Thursday that a deal has been reached, and other congressional aides familiar with the negotiations confirmed that the group is now consulting with the White House.
The breakthrough comes two days after U.S. President Donald Trump summoned lawmakers to the White House and said he would support a deal that would resolve the legal status of “Dreamers,” or young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, and make other changes in immigration and border security policy.
Word of a deal also comes just days before a spending deadline that most Democrats are using as leverage for an immigration agreement.
Government funding expires on Jan. 19, and Democrats say they will support legislation to keep the government operating only if the legislation includes plans to protect Dreamers.
But the talks have deadlocked for weeks amid Republican demands that any changes in the young im- migrants’ legal status be coupled with changes in border security and some legal immigration programs.
A bipartisan group of senators, led by Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, and Flake, said earlier Thursday that they were nearing a deal resembling the framework Trump laid out for Democrats and Republicans: legal protections for Dreamers; changes in security along the U.S.-Mexico border, restrictions on family migration policy, which some conservatives deride as “chain migration,” and changes to a diversity lottery system that grants visas to 55,000 people from countries with low immigration each year.
“Somebody has to put forward a document, someone has to put forward a bill,” Flake told reporters on Wednesday.
In the Senate, “We’ve got to get 60 votes. In order to get 60 votes, you’ve got to have a bipartisan bill,” Flake added.
But Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who once actively participated in the bipartisan group’s talks, said he doubted whether they could strike a deal that passes the closely divided Senate and the GOPdominated House.
“That group has members that for 16 years have tried to get a congressional outcome and it’s not just about 60 votes. It’s 50 per cent plus one in the House,” Tillis said.
Durbin, Flake and Graham have been part of ultimately unsuccessful bipartisan immigration talks that date back to at least 2006.
In a joint news conference Wednesday at the White House with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, Trump was asked if he would sup- port a DACA bill that did not include money for the border wall he has proposed.
“No, no, no,” he replied. “It’s got to include the wall. We need the wall for security. We need the wall for safety. We need the wall to stop the drugs from pouring in. I would imagine the people in the room, both Democrat and Republican — I really believe they are going to come up with a solution to the DACA problem that’s been going on for a long time, and maybe beyond that, immigration as a whole.”
Complicating the talks, Republicans on Wednesday released a flurry of new legislation designed to placate concerns of conservatives wary of a potential bipartisan deal — and to address the fate of hundreds of thousands of other people living in the country under temporary legal protection.