Arizona senator Jeff Flake plans to introduce a proposal offering temporary protection for “Dreamers” in exchange for funding for the construction of President Donald Trump’s border wall when the Senate returns next week.
Flake’s plan would protect from deportation nearly 700,000 unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and were previously protected under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which Trump announced in September he would end, effective in March. The bill would extend protections to DACA recipients for three years and would allocate $7.6 billion to fund the first three years of expensesfor Trump’s wall.
“I’ll be the first to admit this ‘three for three’ approach is far from a perfect solution, but it would provide a temporary fix by beginning the process of improving border security and ensuring DACA recipients will not face potential deportation,” Flake wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post.
His proposal represents a pared-down, last-ditch effort to protect DACA recipients, crafted in response to the Senate’s failure to reach an agreement on a more ambitious immigration package last week. Lawmakers voted down three measures that would have addressed the issue on Thursday and killed another bill that related to sanctuary cities.
Trump’s plan, which would have cut legal immigration nearly in half, performed predictably miserably, winning only 39 “yes” votes. A competing bipartisan plan that faced scorn from the White House before it was put on the floor failed with 54 affirmative votes (60 votes are required to clear the Senate). After the debacle, divisions between Congress and the White House appeared difficult to overcome before a March 5 DACA deadline.
“I can’t see this Congress agreeing with this president on a package that includes a path to citizenship for DACA participants coupled with significant changes to our legal immigration structure,” Flake wrote. Flake’s Republican colleagues showed little interest in further pursuing a DACA fix on Thursday. GOP senators say they have other things to focus on. (The chamber is currently in the middle of a weeklong holiday recess.)
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn suggested a short-term agreement similar to Flake’s plan had the potential to be included in upcoming omnibus appropriations talks. Congress must pass a funding bill before March 23, or lawmakers will have another government shutdown — the third in three months—on their hands. But for Flake’s DACA deal to pass, it would likely have to win approval from the White House, as House Speaker Paul Ryan will be reluctant to put it on the House floor for a vote otherwise.
Flake promised in his op-ed that he would try to force a vote on his measure “again and again” if his colleagues object to a unanimous consent motion to consider his bill.
“Congress has become entirely too comfortable ignoring problems when they seem too difficult to solve,” he wrote. “This issue is not something we can ignore.”
