US Senate Republicans yesterday turned up the heat on Democrats seeking
protections for young “Dreamer” immigrants as Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell embraced President Donald Trump’s demands for broad
changes to the country’s immigration policies.
In announcing his support for legislation that would help immigrants who
were brought illegally to the United States as children, McConnell also
threw his weight behind building a US-Mexico border wall and sharply
curtailing visas for the parents and siblings of immigrants living in
the United States legally.
“This proposal has my support and during this week of fair debate I
believe it deserves support of every senator who’s ready to move beyond
making points and actually making a law,” McConnell, a Republican, said
in a speech on the Senate floor.
Even some Republicans, however, have expressed scepticism that such
broad, fundamental changes in US immigration law can pass the Senate by
the tomorrow’s deadline that No 2 Republican Senator John Cornyn urged
late on Monday.
Also on Monday, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who is leading the
charge for Dreamers, told reporters that he thought early Senate votes
on immigration legislation would begin with “expansive” measures that
will fail to win the 60 votes needed to clear procedural hurdles.
Then, Durbin said, senators will be forced to move “toward the centre with a moderate approach.”
But at least for now, Republicans were holding a tough line.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton, interviewed on Fox News, said Trump’s
immigration plan “is not an opening bid for negotiations. It’s a best
and final offer.”
That ran counter to statements Trump has made in recent days, including
yesterday morning when he tweeted that “Negotiations on DACA have
begun.”
DACA is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, which
Democratic former president Barack Obama initiated in 2012 and which has
allowed around 700,000 Dreamers to legally study and work in the United
States temporarily. Last September, Trump announced he would terminate
the programme on March 5.
During testimony before the Senate Budget Committee on Monday, White
House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said he thought that a deal on
immigration legislation will be reached “and that we have full funding
on the (border) wall” of $18bn over two years.
Durbin and other Democrats have talked of the possibility of a bill that
provides for a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and additional
border security, which could include the construction of more border
fencing and other high-tech tools to deter illegal immigrants.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) (second left) speaks as Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR), Joni Ernst (R-IA), David Perdue (R-GA) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) listen during a news conference on immigration at the Capitol in Washington on Monday.