Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle breathed a sigh of relief Monday after the Supreme Court decided not to take up the Trump administration’s appeal of a federal judge’s ruling that allows the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to continue.
The decision essentially voids the expected March 5 deadline as a hurdle, giving lawmakers more time to potentially work out a permanent solution after months of discussion since Trump’s decision in September. However, despite the expected reprieve from the nation’s highest court, members of both parties remain highly pessimistic that the decision will spur any kind of action nearly two weeks after the Senate voted down four proposals.
If anything, a cooling-off period could be on tap as members hope their temporary legislative fixes for Dreamers could be included in the omnibus spending package by the March 23 deadline.
“I don’t know. Maybe we need a little breathing spell,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., when asked if more time hurts the push for a legislative fix. “The bottom line is it’s going to be wall funding for DACA. It’s going to be a two-pillar approach, not a four-pillar approach.”
One proposal is expected to emerge Tuesday from Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who is proposing an extension of DACA protections for three years in exchange for $7.6 billion in wall funding, which accounts to the first three years of the administration’s border security proposal. His hope is to get the provision attached to the omnibus.
“We do better with a deadline, with some urgency, so it doesn’t help,” Flake said of the Supreme Court’s decision. “But I hope we can still move ahead with what I’m proposing tomorrow.”
While some relief exists among Democrats knowing the DACA program will remain in place and recipients are not at risk of deportation, they still pine for a legislative fix — one they don’t see coming anytime soon.
“It alleviates the short-term pressure, and at the human level it’s very good news,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii. “But in terms of legislative prospects, it really didn’t change anything, because as long as the president is opposed to doing anything, this was never going to pass.”
In recent days, President Trump has taken shots at Democrats and says there is “not a lot of interest” in the subject from their ranks. But Democrats are pointing fingers in the other direction, saying it’s the president and GOP members of Congress who have zero intention of fixing the problem and that it will take a change in leadership to make progress on the issue.
“I think they had already decided to kick the can,” Schatz said.”They’ve just sort of showed no desire to solve this problem. I don’t think this will get fixed until the Congress changes hands.”
With the ruling, the administration is required to maintain protections for 690,000 recipients of the program. But the future of the issue legislatively remains an open question. Lawmakers are expected to include multiyear fix for recipients in the looming spending package, which could complicate the omnibus ahead of the March 23 deadline.
This, however, does not satisfy Democrats, who continue to clamor for a fix that gives certainty to Dreamers that has been absent, especially in the House where no bills have been brought to the floor like they were in the Senate two weeks ago.
“Hopefully the powers that be have the power to actually let us bring about change will come to that conclusion and get off their ass and do something about it,” said Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., the No. 5 Democrat in the caucus.
