Top Senate Republicans are optimistic about the chances of working out a deal with President-elect Trump to protect so-called “Dreamers,” or people who were illegally brought to the United States as children and allowed to remain under President Obama’s executive action that deferred the threat of deportation.
In an interview with Time magazine last week, Trump softened his rhetoric on the issue and said he wants to “work something out” for at least 740,000 Dreamers who have gotten deportation reprieves and work permits since President Obama introduced his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive action in 2012. House Speaker Paul Ryan echoed his remarks, and said there would not be an “ugly disruption” for them.
Those comments have made Senate Republicans optimistic that some agreement can be reached, especially after Trump’s hardline position on illegal immigrants during the campaign.
“Obviously, I hope that he is [open to this],” Sen. Jeff Flake told the Washington Examiner. Flake introduced the DREAM Act as part of legislation during his tenure in the House and in the Senate as part of the “Gang of Eight” bill in 2013.
“That’s where I’ve been all along,” he said. “I hope to be able to work with the administration on this because these kids are going to time out of the program some time soon.”
“I do think that we’ll reach some agreement,” Flake said. “Obviously, Congress needs to act on it because we’ve all said … what the president did was outside of his constitutional authority, so Congress needs to act, but needs to do so before these kids time out, and that will be within the next two years.”
Trump initially planned to undo DACA and Obama’s Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, which Obama signed in 2014 and shields the undocumented parents of American children and lawful residents from deportation. However, Trump’s comments last week made waves, leading to a group of senators to introduce legislation to deal with the issue.
A bipartisan group of senators, headed by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin, introduced a bill Friday to give increased protections to Dreamers for three years and allow them to keep their benefits if they are rescinded by Trump. If the bill were to pass in June, 2017, it would stay in effect until June, 2020.
“Growingly optimistic,” Graham told the Examiner when asked for a reaction to Trump’s remarks. “I think most Americans want to reform immigration, but they don’t want to pull the rug out from under these kids, so his comments to Time magazine were encouraging. I thought very thoughtful.”
“The executive order is the wrong route to do this. I think it is unconstitutional, but the kids, they didn’t have anything to do with that — still got about 800,000 people that would be completely thrown back into the darkness,” Graham said. “So this allows them to continue their legal status, which Congress is blessing for three years, until we can figure out how to fix this.”
A vast majority of Republicans still call for border security measures to be implemented before any action can be taken to deal with the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. However, some oppose Graham’s proposal on different grounds.
Sen. John McCain, also a member of the 2013 push for comprehensive immigration reform, believes that the only possible approach to immigration should be in the form of a comprehensive bill.
“I want comprehensive reform. I want the Dreamers to be part of it. I’m not ready to pick it apart by cherry picking those parts people want and don’t,” McCain told reporters last week. “If we don’t have comprehensive reform, which includes border security, you’ll have more Dreamers. We need to have a comprehensive approach, it’s what I’ve always been for.”
“I don’t know what to expect because a lot of it has to do with the president-elect,” McCain said. “I would be strongly in favor of maybe making the adjustments to the bill we made in the Senate and could have passed through the House if had ever gone up for a vote, including border security emphasis and the technology that we now have that we didn’t have then for securing the border.”
The bill’s future in the GOP-controlled House or Senate is unknown at the moment. In the last few sessions of Congress, the issue has divided the GOP to the point where leaders didn’t push any variation of the bill. McCain himself doesn’t see the bill going anywhere anytime soon.
“They’re not going to get anything out of it,” McCain said of Graham’s proposal. “Come on — just because they introduced it? There’s not going to be any action on it.”
