Republican senators are predicting that a fix for the DACA program will end up in next month’s government funding bill, as they search for ways to break a months-long stalemate.
That’s probably the most likely thing, when we write the funding of the government bill we’ll extend DACA legislatively, making it legal for a year or two and kind of punting it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters on Monday.
The other two options, in Graham’s view, are Congress doing nothing or President Trump realizing there is a “sweet spot” that would pair a permanent fix for DACA with border wall funding.
The pivot to a short-term DACA agreement and the possibility of attaching it to the government funding bill comes after senators rejected four immigration proposals, earlier this month. The setback meant no clear end to a months-long debate and raised new questions about what, if anything, could pass Congress and win over Trump.
Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) are working on legislation that would pair a three-year DACA extension with $7.6 billion in border security funding. Congress has until March 24 to pass a government funding bill and prevent the third partial shutdown of the year.
The omnibus likely represents Democrats’ next, best point of leverage to try to force a DACA deal going forward. The government funding deadline comes weeks after the initial March 5 deadline created by the Trump administration’s.
President Trump had given congress until March 5th to pass legislation to replace DACA, however two court’s injunctions blocked the repeal and just yesterday the Supreme Court rejected the administration’s request to leapfrog an appeals court and take up their appeal of one of the injunctions, allowing the program to continue
Recent Comments