Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was confident Thursday that Democrats and Republicans will be able to find a consensus plan to implement border security and protect hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday a rollback of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) but said that it was up to Congress to provide a “fix” for the roughly 800,000 illegal immigrants protected by the program.
“Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do),” Trump tweeted Tuesday. “If they can’t, I will revisit this issue!”
On Thursday, Speaker Ryan took part in a Q&A hosted by The New York Times and the Newseum and claimed six months is enough time to find a compromise. He said that border security is “the root cause” of the illegal immigration issue and that congressmen want to fix that problem and not deal with a similar dilemma in ten years.
“I’m going to put a consensus plan on the floor,” Ryan said. He added that he doesn’t think “for the most part Democrats are against border security.”
“When you combine these two issues you can find a compromise,” the House Speaker said.
Ryan was certainly more optimistic than Republican Iowa Rep. Steve King was Wednesday.
“I think [Trump’s action is] a little bit of a Solomon-esque maneuver,” the immigration hawk said on CNN in reference to the Old Testament story. “He cut the baby in half and threw it to Congress to fight over. I didn’t want to see our Congress divided.”