Democrats see no leverage left to push DACA fix with budget deal done

Published February 9, 2018 1:31pm ET



Democrats say they have little leverage left to pressure Republicans to call up a bill addressing the legal status of Dreamers now that Congress has passed a budget deal that boosted defense and domestic spending caps, and lifted the debt ceiling for a year.

The budget agreement set spending levels for the next two years, and it passed as part of a short-term spending bill that included billions in disaster relief with 73 Democrats joining most Republicans in support of the measure. The Democrats who opposed the deal because it didn’t include a fix for the 800,000 recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program now have little hope that legislation will be passed by the March 5 deadline imposed by Trump, if at all.

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