Sides still far apart on immigration
Pelosi criticizes Trump’s remarks
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s State of the Union offer of a “down-the-middle compromise” on immigration did nothing to move Republicans and Democrats closer to a deal Wednesday, as Democrats accused the president of lacing his speech with racially charged remarks and Republicans dug in on their demands.
The reaction to Trump’s high-profile overture suggested both parties were settling into a protracted tug-of-war. The standoff left serious doubt whether the two parties could reach an election-year pact to protect hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation, increase border security and take other steps to curb immigration. The two parties had not even settled on a deadline for an agreement.
“If the deadline is Feb. 8, we’re not going to make it,” No. 2 House Democratic leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said Wednesday, noting a looming deadline for approving government funding to avoid another shutdown.
“It’s going to take work for us to build a consensus,” Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., the House GOP vote counter, said in an interview Tuesday. Scalise noted that Republicans took “weeks and weeks” to craft tax legislation last year.
Earlier this month, Senate Democrats looking to pressure Republicans to reach an immigration deal forced a three-day federal shutdown. While many Democrats have little appetite to repeat that strategy, party leaders have yet to indicate if they’ll let future budget legislation move forward without an immigration accord.
Trump asserted Tuesday night that “open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities” and let millions of immigrants “compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Wednesday that Trump used “insulting words of ignorance and prejudice.”
Republicans said Democrats are not making serious offers as they bargain over Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the Obama-era program that’s shielded “Dreamers” in the U.S. illegally who were brought here as children. Trump said last year he was ending the program, claiming executive overreach by President Barack Obama, but gave Congress until March 5 to enshrine it into law.
Trump has proposed a 10- to 12-year track to citizenship for around 1.8 million younger immigrants protected by DACA or eligible for its guarantees. That’s enraged GOP conservatives.
“The heartburn is the amnesty component,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., leder of the hardright House Freedom Caucus, referring to Trump’s offer of citizenship. He said that plan needs “a few adjustments that may be major” before it could pass the House.