Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)

Wall compromise crumbles

Presidenti­al proposal rebuffed by Democrats

- By Debra J. Saunders Review-Journal White House Correspond­ent

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Saturday

offered to extend protection­s for some undocument­ed immigrants brought into the country illegally as children and immigrants with temporary protected

status as part of a deal to end the partial government shutdown, now in its fifth week.

The package includes $5.7 billion “for a strategic deployment of physical barriers, or a wall” at the southwest border. In exchange, Trump said, his plan would provide “three more years of certainty”

for 700,000 DACA recipients.

In September 2017, Trump ended President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. That program allowed young immigrants living in the country illegally who were brought

here as children, often referred to as Dreamers, to remain in the U.S.

The Trump administra­tion also ended temporary protected status for some 300,000 nationals from countries mostly in the Caribbean and Central America over the past 16 months.

Trump called his latest proposal “a common-sense compromise both parties should embrace.”

Even before he delivered his remarks, Democrats rejected the overture.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement in advance of Trump’s address.

“Unfortunat­ely, initial reports make clear that his proposal is a compilatio­n of several previously rejected initiative­s, each of which is unacceptab­le and in total do not represent a good-faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives,” she said.

Pelosi, who has called Trump’s plan for a wall an “immorality,” predicted that the Trump package could not pass in the House.

“For one thing, this proposal does not include a permanent solution for the Dreamers and TPS recipients that our country needs and supports,” she said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer expressed similar sentiments.

“It was the president who single-handedly took away DACA and TPS protection­s in the first place,” Schumer said. “Offering some protection­s back in exchange for the wall is not a compromise but more hostage-taking.”

Trump spoke for 13 minutes from the White House diplomatic reception room on the 29th day of the shutdown. He did not mention the 800,000 federal workers who have been furloughed or working without paychecks.

He instead focused on what he called the “badly broken” immigratio­n system and the “humanitari­an” and “security crisis” at the southern border.

As soon as Trump’s remarks were over, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent out a statement in which he said he plans to bring a measure with the Trump plan to a floor vote in the coming week.

Previously McConnell had said he

would not present a measure to the Senate floor unless he knew Trump would sign it. Democrats had begun to pinpoint McConnell’s decision as an impediment to ending the shutdown.

While the shutdown drags on, the Washington blame game seems likely to continue unabated.

The fact that Democrats “rejected the proposal before they even heard of it goes to show that they’re not willing to take the necessary steps to open up the government. That’s a good deal. It’s time for Pelosi to put up or shut up,” GOP strategist Alice Stewart told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., issued a

statement that read, “The President’s desperate political theater did not include any indication that he would end this shutdown soon. Stoking fear about immigrants will not help federal workers finally get the paychecks they have earned. Enough is enough with this reckless Trump shutdown.”

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., tweeted that while a debate over securing the borders is needed, “this President shouldn’t do it by holding federal workers & their families’ livelihood­s hostage. We need to reopen the government & then have the debate.”

Mark Krikorian, of the pro-enforcemen­t Center for Immigratio­n Studies, found the Trump proposal to be “not unreasonab­le.”

Krikorian tweeted that if the compromise bill gets 50 votes but not the 60 votes needed to bring the measure to the floor, “then it really does become the Schumer Shutdown.”

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., told CNN that the president “is asking Border Patrol agents to work without pay.”

House Democrats, Lofgren said, are about to push legislatio­n that would increase funding for border security, but the measure would not include money for Trump’s wall, Lofgren said. Instead, Democrats propose more spending on technology and ports of entry.

Trump’s package also proposes added funding for technology at the border and ports of entry.

 ??  ?? President Donald Trump
President Donald Trump
 ?? Alex Brandon The Associated Press ?? President Donald Trump departs after speaking Saturday at the White House about the partial government shutdown, immigratio­n and border security.
Alex Brandon The Associated Press President Donald Trump departs after speaking Saturday at the White House about the partial government shutdown, immigratio­n and border security.
 ?? Carolyn Kaster The Associated Press ?? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gives a news conference Thursday on Capitol Hill. She and other Democrats rejected a White House plan aimed at breaking the stalemate over border wall funding.
Carolyn Kaster The Associated Press House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gives a news conference Thursday on Capitol Hill. She and other Democrats rejected a White House plan aimed at breaking the stalemate over border wall funding.

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