WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — Republicans and Democrats will determine this week if they are prepared to cut a critical bipartisan deal on immigration that has become key to clearing a year-long government spending bill.
Lawmakers in the Senate will attempt to write legislation that protects so-called Dreamers from deportation but implements strong border security elements as well as reforms to chain migration and the visa lottery system.
Republicans, at their annual retreat at West Virginia’s Greenbrier Resort, came to no consensus among themselves about an immigration plan their party can agree on, and lawmakers weren’t clear whether a bill would be ready this week.
“The biggest issue on immigration is not trying to resolve it among Republicans right now, but building a bipartisan coalition in the Senate that the White House can also agree on, and that the House can agree on,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told the Washington Examiner.
Next week, a stopgap spending bill will expire, requiring lawmakers to pass another temporary spending bill. Last month, Democrats for three days blocked government funding legislation because it did not include a provision to protect Dreamers.
They relented in part because they were being blamed for an unpopular shutdown. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also promised to bring up immigration reform in February, as long as Democrats vote for another funding bill.
Democrats aren’t likely to repeat their opposition to the spending bill next week, McConnell predicted.
“One tool that has clearly been eliminated,” McConnell said. “I don’t think we’ll see a government shutdown again.”
But lawmakers in the Senate still hope to have the outline of an agreement next week, though it is unclear how they will bridge the gap between what GOP lawmakers and the president are seeking and what Democrats are willing to accept.
Bipartisan groups of senators have been meeting for weeks to try to come to an agreement on legislation, as has a separate group of bipartisan congressional lawmakers and Trump administration officials.
But an accord has not materialized, mostly because Democrats do not want changes to chain migration. Many Republicans want to limit chain migration to minor children and spouses, which Democrats believe is too limited.
They don’t want it in the bill at all.
“That’s for a larger comprehensive immigration debate,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said.
Senate Republicans suggested to reporters Thursday the upper chamber could take up a bill that legalizes Dreamers in exchange for border security funding, excluding the chain migration and visa lottery changes.
But House negotiators frowned at that plan.
“I don’t think that would pass the House,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said.
Goodlatte has authored a bill to protect Dreamers in exchange for border security and immigration reforms, including ending chain migration and the visa lottery system.
His bill has the support of many conservatives, but it’s not clear whether it would win 218 Republican votes.
Goodlatte expects a vote on the bill and said he is building support among GOP members.
“We are working very hard on the legislation,” he said.
President Trump, who spoke to Republican lawmakers at their retreat, urged them to incorporate his immigration framework, which ends chain migration and the visa lottery system.
Trump, in his address to Republicans, suggested he will not sign a bill that does not reform chain migration and the visa lottery system.
Trump’s framework offers a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million people who arrived here as children.
“If the Democrats choose to filibuster a framework that includes a generous path to citizenship or something that is not fair, we are not going to approve it,” Trump said. “We’re just not going to approve it.”
Senate Democrats held a separate retreat last week.
Lankford said he’s been talking by phone to Democrats, calling their retreat from the GOP’s own gathering.
“We’ve got to get this all worked out and be able to establish how this is going to get done,” Lankford said he told Democrats. “We’ve got just under a week to be able to say this is the framework we have agreement on.”
Lankford said it could happen this week. “It’s the pressure of actually coming to the point of saying we all have to make a decision,” he said.
