Senate blocks Trump-backed immigration plan and everything else on the table
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The U.S. Senate has begun talking about an immigration plan that would pave a path to citizenship for up to 1.8 million young “DREAMer” immigrants in the U.S. illegally. (Feb. 13)
AP
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday killed four immigration bills, including a Republican measure backed by President Trump and a competing bipartisan proposal, both of which would have offered legal protections to undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.
The Senate’s failure to reach a consensus on the volatile issue of immigration puts those immigrants in jeopardy of deportation starting March 5, when the White House plans to rescind their Obama-era legal protections. It’s unclear what, if anything, the House will do to address the issue.
Thursday’s Senate votes came after the White House mounted an all-out, scorched-earth campaign to defeat the bipartisan proposal.
Top Trump administration officials lobbied senators to take their names off that bipartisan bill, with White House officials suggesting that lawmakers were either misinformed or misrepresenting the legislation’s intent and impact. And Trump himself weighed in via Twitter just as the Senate was about to begin voting, saying the bipartisan plan would be a “total catastrophe.”Â
The bipartisan bill, unveiled Wednesday night by a group of 16 senators, would have provided a pathway to citizenship for the DREAMers, those undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. The bill would have also allocated $25 billion to strengthen security at the southern border with Mexico, limited family-based immigration, and barred the parents of DREAMers from becoming citizens.Â
“This is the only bill that has a chance to get through the United States Senate,†Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, a lead sponsor of the bill told reporters before Thursday’s vote. Unlike the GOP-controlled House, which can pass legislation with the support of the majority party, most major pieces of legislation require 60 votes in the Senate and therefore bipartisan support. Republicans hold only 51 seats in the Senate, so any of the four bills would have needed bipartisan support.
The White House slammed King’s bill and threatened a presidential veto.
“This Amendment would drastically change our national immigration policy for the worse by weakening border security and undercutting existing immigration law,†a statement from the White House said.
The Department of Homeland Security said the bill “would be the end of immigration enforcement in America.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a co-sponsor of the bipartisan bill who has had an on-again-off-again relationship with the president, urged him to reverse course. Â
“Mr. President you’re being led down a path where you won’t get a result. Reject this kind of engagement with the Congress,” Graham said Thursday. “What’s wrong with Washington? You give (the Department of Homeland Security) $25 billion of the money they ask for and they slam you.”Â
President Trump instead backed a more restrictive Senate bill, which was also defeated on Thursday. That proposal, sponsored by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, would have granted eventual citizenship to 1.8 million of the DREAMers and given Trump his requested $25 billion for immigration enforcement, including funding for a wall along the U.S. southern border.
It also would have met Trump’s demands for changes to family-based immigration, or what Republicans call “chain migration,†and ended a diversity visa lottery system. That bill would have cut legal immigration by at least 25%.Â
The Senate also rejected two narrower bills: one to create path to citizenship for the DREAMers and improve border security, and a second to withhold funding from “sanctuary cities†which limit local police officers’ cooperation with federal immigration authorities.Â
Schumer-Rounds-Collins is well-intentioned but falls drastically short of being a proposal that can get a vote in the House and be signed into law. The Senate needs to learn from the Gang of 8 failure, not repeat it.
— Senator Thom Tillis (@SenThomTillis) February 15, 2018
With the four failed votes Thursday afternoon, the Senate is left with no clear path to address the fate of the DREAMers, and the House has not yet scheduled a vote on the issue.
Contributing: Herb Jackson, Alan Gomez