Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said Monday she would vote this against a bill to keep the government open past Thursday unless language is added to help “Dreamers.”
“I’m going to have a problem with it,” she said on MSNBC when asked whether she would accept a short-term spending bill this week while immigration talks continue. “We have to protect these kids.”
Congress is expected to vote early this week on a bill to keep the government open after Feb. 8. Democrats insisted last month that if no broad immigration deal were reached by that date, they would need a separate vote on a legislative fix to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
But even if Senate Republicans allow that vote, a simple fix to DACA is unlikely to go anywhere, since Republicans are also hoping to attach tough border enforcement language to that bill. The lack of agreement on the right mix of DACA language and border language is what has prevented any agreement from coming together.
Harris was one of 16 Senate Democrats who voted against keeping the government open last month, for the same reason.
She said the time for ignoring the Dreamers, immigrants who came to the country illegally as children, is past.
“They have been coming in the tens of thousands to the Capitol, every day,” she said. “God only knows how they afford it, by bus, train, who knows how they get there.”
“They’re sleeping 10-deep on someone’s living room floor, walking through the halls of the United States Congress because they believe in our government, and these kids believe that if we see them and hear their stories, we would acknowledge that we should continue to protect them, as we promised we would,” Harris added.
Harris said it’s a “false choice” to say it’s about keeping the government open or helping the Dreamers. “I think we can do both,” she said.
