Republican lawmakers previewed a bill to permanently establish the DACA program, fund a border wall, end chain migration and end the visa lottery program.
It would not offer the young illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has shielded the immigrants, who entered the U.S. as young people, from deportation.
The Wall Street Journal op-ed was written by Reps. Martha McSally, Michael McCaul and Bob Goodlatte. President Donald Trump told reporters Monday during a bipartisan meeting on DACA that a bill to be introduced by Goodlatte would be a “bill of love. Truly, it should be a bill of love.”
“Our bill would allow DACA beneficiaries to receive a three-year renewable legal status, codifying the program the right way—by a duly enacted statute. But to be clear, there is no new or special path to citizenship for these individuals in our bill,” the lawmakers wrote.
Trump ended the Obama-era protections in September, extending the program until March 2017, leaving it to Congress to forge a permanent solution for the nearly 800,000 young illegals.
Goodlatte and his colleague’s proposal also includes $30 billion of funding for a border wall along with other border security measures. The bill would also “add boots on the ground: an additional 5,000 Border Patrol agents and 5,000 Customs and Border Protection officers. It would provide for the construction of additional ports of entry and a full implementation of the biometric entry-exit system, while authorizing the National Guard to provide aviation and intelligence support.”
Trump has insisted any fix to DACA must include funding for a physical wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, though he also said that he would sign any immigration legislation passed by Congress.
As I made very clear today, our country needs the security of the Wall on the Southern Border, which must be part of any DACA approval.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018
The bill’s appropriation for a border wall is likely to meet opposition by Democratic lawmakers who insisted Monday they were open to border security funding for any DACA fix but opposed to a physical wall. Negotiations are likely to continue in the coming days as Democrats consider whether they should use leverage of a possible government shutdown to get more favorable terms in the deal.
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