‘Dreamers’ fix blocked in Senate
A push to pass a bill granting citizenship to certain immigrants brought into the country illegally as children was blocked in the Senate on Thursday.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) — noting that a mammoth funding bill currently being debated by the chamber doesn’t include a fix for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients — asked for unanimous consent to pass the DREAM Act.
“We have this 2,000-page bill which addresses every subject imaginable, but doesn’t address the looming deadline that we face in America where [we’re] one court decision away from hundreds of thousands of young people being deported,” he said.
{mosads}Under a consent request, any one senator can block a bill from being passed. Durbin hinted that he expected to be stymied, saying “I’m going to be making a unanimous consent request when this is over. I think I know how it will end.”
The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, or DREAM Act, would grant a pathway to citizenship for immigrants brought into the country illegally as children as long as they meet certain requirements.
But Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) objected to Durbin’s request. Instead, Tillis asked him to modify his request so that the Senate could instead pass a bill that largely aligns with the White House’s framework.
“I hope that we’ll continue to work on this bill so that we can provide certainty to the DACA population. They deserve a path to citizenship,” he said.
The bill would provide a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million immigrants, $25 billion in border security, eliminate the State Department’s diversity visa lottery and enact new limitations on family-based immigration.
The proposal was one of three DACA fixes rejected by the Senate last month. It got 39 votes — the fewest of any of the measures.
The back-and-forth comes as the debate over DACA has largely stalemated. A source familiar with the talks told The Hill earlier this week that the White House offered to include a deal in the omnibus that would give $25 billion in border money in exchange for a 2 1/2 year extension of DACA.
Democrats rejected the offer and countered with $25 billion in border security and a pathway to citizenship for the broader 1.8 million population. The White House rejected the counteroffer, according to the source.
The Trump administration announced last year that it was ending the Obama-era DACA program.
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