Both sides have reasons to shun Trump’s plan
President Donald Trump’s four-part immigration proposal landed with a thud on Capitol Hill late last week, with entrenched interests on the left and right making predictable pronouncements of disgust.
Many Democrats immediately shot down the president’s plan, taking issue mostly with proposals to greatly restrict family immigration and end the visa lottery system.
“It is shameful that the White House is demanding such extreme concessions that have wide-ranging, negative consequences in order to protect Dreamers,” said Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a New Mexican who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
At the same time, we didn’t hear progressive Democrats complaining about another key component of Trump’s plan: Extending a path to citizenship to 1.8 million young people who were brought to the U.S. by their parents illegally.
No, the belly-aching about that part of the president’s proposal came from the right. The bomb-throwing conservative Breitbart website — taking a nickname cue from the president himself — quickly labeled Trump “Amnesty Don.” Numerous Republicans bemoaned the very idea of giving young people who have only ever known life in the United States a chance to remain in the country legally and earn citizenship.
“There should be no amnesty for anyone who broke the law to come here,” Rep. Scott DesJarlais, a Tennessee Republican and conservative Freedom Caucus member told The Hill newspaper. “It’s a slap in the face to those who follow the law.”
So, both sides found something to loathe about the president’s proposal. Maybe there’s hope for a compromise yet. To be sure, Republicans are driving this negotiation, and if any agreement is reached, it’s likely to push U.S. immigration policy more right than left. The GOP controls both chambers of Congress and the White House. That’s how it works.
And while it’s also clear that Congress won’t adopt the president’s proposal in full, the White House deserves some credit for trying to focus the debate. After all, we’ve already had one government shutdown this month because lawmakers can’t get anywhere close to an immigration agreement that would grease the wheels on a spending deal. Another shutdown looms on Feb. 8 if a deal doesn’t materialize.
However, there may be a pressure relief valve at work. A federal judge in San Francisco on Jan. 9 ordered the Trump administration to continue processing DACA applications, and the White House surprisingly didn’t seek a stay of execution to block the judge’s order. The Department of Homeland Security also announced that it would begin processing DACA applications again. Some interpreted that as Trump wanting to give Congress more time and wiggle room to negotiate a solution before his revocation of the Obama-era policy goes into effect March 5. Maybe a longer-term spending deal can be reached without a broader immigration agreement if the Justice Department isn’t actively deporting Dreamers.
New Mexico Republican Rep. Steve Pearce, a Freedom Caucus member who has long opposed letting people already in the country move to the front of the legal immigration line, took a more muted approach to the president’s plan than many of his colleagues on the left and right.
In a Journal editorial board meeting Thursday, Pearce signaled he may drop his opposition to expedited citizenship for so-called Dreamers if — and that’s a big “if” — congressional Democrats could make concessions on family migration and the visa lottery. Asked if such a deal “was a reasonable compromise” — at least to him — Pearce said: “Probably, but I’d want to see it first.”
On Friday, Pearce issued a statement that didn’t take any position on Trump’s proposed immigration reform framework but instead stressed that members of Congress will have to engage with each other to find a “negotiated solution.”
A fourth and final component of Trump’s request to Congress is a call for a $25 billion “trust fund” for construction of a border wall that he promised supporters in the 2016 campaign. Democrats don’t like that idea, either. After all, wasn’t Mexico supposed to pay for that? But while Democrats aren’t likely to pony up for a wall, per se, many would accept additional spending on border security upgrades in exchange for a permanent DACA deal for Dreamers. In the end, if any immigration agreement passes both chambers of Congress and reaches the president’s desk, that may be as much as we can expect.