Vice President Mike Pence said Republicans are not planning to make a budget deal that gives “amnesty,” or the government’s forgiving people illegally in the U.S. and providing a pathway to citizenship, as part of talks to end the partial federal shutdown.
“I have heard no discussion of that or amnesty related to this,” Pence told Fox News host Tucker Carlson in an interview that aired late Thursday.
Pence punted when first asked about giving the more than 11 million people illegally present in the country protections from deportation.
After being asked again, he reiterated President Trump’s focus was a border wall system, not exchanges for people in the U.S. without government permission.
“Some members of the Senate are talking about maybe including Dreamers in some sort of an negotiated settlement,” he said, referring to “Dreamers” or young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents.
In 1986, then-President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which gave people illegally residing in the country before 1982 legal status.
Pence also said he met privately with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., twice over the holiday weekend but was unable to strike a deal.
“The president made it clear, we’re here to make a deal. It is a deal that’s going to result in achieving real gains on border security. You have no border security without the wall. We will have no deal without a wall,” said Pence.
The former Indiana governor said Trump’s refusal to accept no or little funding when he has asked for $5.7 billion for border security operations was based on a surge of illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border.
In November, more than 50,000 were apprehended illegally entering the country at the southern border, the highest in Trump’s nearly two years in office.
Half of those people were families — more than seven times the rate one year ago.
Court rulings at the end of former President Barack Obama’s second term concluded families and children could not be held in federal custody more than 20 days. Because asylum proceedings take one to two years per person, a person taken into custody for illegal entry who then goes onto apply for asylum will be released.
The Department of Homeland Security has said the system incentivizes people to illegally enter as families. Ninety-nine percent of families who illegally entered the U.S. last year remain in the U.S.
