Republican mega-donors Charles and David Koch are launching a seven-figure ad campaign to call on Congress to pass a lasting solution to protect Dreamers from deportation.
The LIBRE Initiative and Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, two groups within the powerful Koch network, announced the national, multiplatform advertising campaign campaign Tuesday night. The ad, featuring former presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, will air nationally on Sunday, beginning with a spot on NBC’s Meet The Press.
The Koch campaign comes on the heels of Trump’s recent declaration that “DACA is dead,” blaming Democratic lawmakers for the failed negotiations.
There are 3.6 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. who were brought to the country as children; they are known colloquially as “Dreamers” after the DREAM Act that was introduced first in 2001 but never passed. About 700,000 of those immigrants are enrolled in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. DACA recipients have been in limbo since President Donald Trump announced last September that he would end the program, with his decision still unfolding in the courts.
“Congress and the White House have spent a lot of time talking about DACA, but today our elected officials have yet to approve a permanent legislative solution,” LIBRE Initiative president Daniel Garza said in a press release Tuesday evening. “Washington must come together and approve a bipartisan solution that provides certainty for Dreamers and security improvements along our border.”
Congress has indeed struggled to come to an agreement on the issue. Fearful of political repercussions in the midst of an election year, Republican leaders have refused to bring bipartisan proposals to the floor for a vote in the House. And after Democrats provoked a brief government shutdown over the issue at the beginning of the year, Senate leaders gave members a few days in February to find a solution to the years-long debate before ultimately throwing in the towel.
Trump offered his compromise at the height of the debate, offering a pathway to citizenship for about 1.8 million Dreamers in exchange for $25 billion in border security funding and massive reductions in legal immigration. The Koch network endorsed that plan, applauding its pathway to citizenship component.
But it was unpopular in Congress. And despite previously promising to sign whatever agreement lawmakers could come up with, Trump has done little to clear the way for such a bill. When a bipartisan group came up with a moderate proposal that had the potential to pass the Senate in February, the White House vehemently shot it down as a dangerous and untenable option. Little headway has been made in the time since.
“President Trump and our congressional leaders should step up and do the right thing. This is too big of a problem for lawmakers to ignore, or to allow politics to get in the way,” said James Davis, executive vice president of Freedom Partners.
