The White House is dismissing an immigration deal brokered by a bipartisan group of lawmakers as a non-starter just hours before it is expected to be formally introduced in the Senate.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons are slated to introduce a bill Monday that would grant permanent legal status to young undocumented immigrants who have been in the country since 2013, but it does not address all of the President’s stated immigration priorities, like ending family-based immigration categories — which Republicans call “chain migration”. It also does not immediately authorize the $30 billion that Trump is seeking to build the border wall, instead greenlighting a study of border security needs.
The bill is a companion to a piece of House legislation that has 54 co-sponsors split evenly by party.
A White House official rebuffed the effort, telling CNN that it takes “a lot of effort” to write up a bill worse than the Graham-Durbin immigration bill, but somehow “this one is worse.”
Trump tweeted about the latest immigration efforts Monday, writing, “Any deal on DACA that does not include STRONG border security and the desperately needed WALL is a total waste of time. March 5th is rapidly approaching and the Dems seem not to care about DACA. Make a deal!”
McCain said in a statement announcing their plan that they have what he considers “broad support” and is the companion bill to legislation introduced by Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd and California Democrat Rep. Pete Aguilar.
“While reaching a deal cannot come soon enough for America’s service members, the current political reality demands bipartisan cooperation to address the impending expiration of the DACA program and secure the southern border,” McCain said in the statement.
“It’s no secret that Congress is gridlocked, and there is a growing list of unaddressed issues we simply have to fix, but I still believe that we agree on more than we disagree on,” Coons said in the same statement.