Congressional Republicans flashed a glimpse Tuesday of the coming battle they will face over what to do with those protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, an Obama-era directive for young illegal immigrants who have grown up in the U.S. and could lose their legal status when the Trump administration completes its phase-out of the program next spring.
Trump’s decision to gradually end DACA, a program once described as a “temporary stopgap measure” when created by former President Obama, sparked a mixed reaction among GOP lawmakers who have clashed for years over how to appropriately address unauthorized immigration without incentivizing it.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham implored Trump to show Americans “where [his] heart is” by working with Congress to permanently enact a program that would shield illegal immigrants from deportation if they arrived in the U.S. before age 18 and met a series of other educational and employment requirements.
“You have a chance, as the leader of the Republican Party, to do two things: say that we are a party of constitutional process. That we believe in doing it right, but right means taking care of these kids,” Graham said at a press conference Tuesday.
Others, like Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said the GOP should work to pass legislation that would create a pathway to citizenship or permanent residents for so-called Dreamers – the 800,000 or so DACA recipients who will be at risk of deportation if their legal visas expire without a legislative solution in place, but pair it with the additional immigration restrictions contained in his bill the RAISE Act. That measure would, among other things, legal immigration levels by half over the next 10 years.
“We should find a way to give [them] legal status, but we also have to mitigate the inevitable consequences of that action,” Cotton told the Washington Examiner earlier this week.
Iowa Rep. Steve King, a notorious immigration hardliner, flatly rejected the idea of giving DACA recipients permanent legal status. The Hawkeye State Republican suggested in a tweet Tuesday that undocumented youth instead enroll in the Peace Corps as “volunteers in [their] home countries.”
Trump has given Congress six months to find a legislative solution that deals with undocumented youth, a move the White House sees as a catalyst for “responsible immigration reform.” Congressional GOP leaders are already poised to spend most of September tackling a to-do list that includes a debt-limit provision, a disaster relief package for victims of Hurricane Harvey, and a spending bill to keep the government funded through the end of the fiscal year.
“We have a lot of business we have to conduct here and a lot of important issues to address,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Tuesday.
Johnson told the Washington Examiner he hopes there can be “some good give-and-take” on a bipartisan immigration reform package that addresses the Dreamer issue but also contains measures to boost border security.
But Ford O’Connell, a Washington-based Republican strategist, expects that certain GOP lawmakers will have a difficult time making concessions without jeopardizing their colleagues’ support.
“What makes immigration tough is that in the Republican party there’s just two sides and no real meeting in the middle, and they’re going to have to figure out how to make that work with Dreamers because they have a real chance to make some immigration changes that the party was seeking when it was out of power,” O’Connell said.
“Unfortunately, they also have one – possibly two – hurricanes to deal with, and the debt ceiling and spending stuff.”
Congressional Republicans have already proved once this year that intraparty disagreements can doom the legislation. Nearly three months after the House GOP members passed an item to repeal and replace Obamacare, a skinnier version of the bill died in the Senate, where disputes over Medicare reform and subsidies resulted in a 49-51 vote.
The party is now bracing for a rift between those who believe compassion for undocumented youth translates to permanent legal status or citizenship, and those wanting a resurgence of hardline immigration policy.
Asked Tuesday if immigration reform could go the way of healthcare, Johnson told reporters: “Hope springs eternal. How about that?”
“There are definitely going to be some bumps as Republicans come together on this issue and that’s why President Trump gave them six months to figure it out,” O’Connell said. “If they drop the ball on this too, they have no one to blame but themselves.”
Many Republican lawmakers who welcomed Trump’s decision to punt to Congress on DACA simultaneously admitted that they are likely to struggle with devising a solution to the problem.
“I just can’t see this Congress at this stage – I can’t see us doing a good job of running when we’re having a tough time walking,” Congressman Mike Rounds, R-S.D., told the Washington Examiner. “But I am glad that the president is saying this is something [we] should handle now.”
Homeland Security Department officials said Tuesday that DACA will fully expire on March 5 unless Congress chooses to enact the program as policy. The added pressure of a looming deadline has some holding out hope that Republicans will succeed in crafting an immigration bill that can attract enough support in both chambers.
“Republicans in Congress only seem to get their act together when you give them a hard deadline and put a legislative gun to their head,” O’Connell said.
