The White House asked GOP leaders Thursday to put President Trump’s immigration framework up for a vote in the Senate when the chamber begins its debate in coming weeks, moving to make his four-point plan the basis for the looming floor fight.
The move is likely to meet with resistance from Democrats and even some Republicans who are working on alternatives, but who have yet to reach a deal on anything that Mr. Trump could sign.
Mr. Trump, speaking to Republicans at their annual policy retreat, said he’s made a “generous” offer and said it’s flipped the politics of the issue. He said it’s Democrats, not Republicans, who will suffer if they refuse to take his deal.
“If they don’t approve something within that sphere, that means, very simply, that they’re not looking to approve it at all,” he said. “They want to use it for an election issue, but it’s now an election issue that will go to our benefit, not their benefit.”
Democrats bristled at the challenge, saying Mr. Trump poisoned the debate with harsh comments about El Salvador, Haiti and other developing nations.
“Memo to Donald Trump: YOU created the DACA crisis,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, Oregon Democrat, said on Twitter. “Dems and Rs came up with a bipartisan compromise 3 weeks ago, and you rejected it with a rant about ’s***hole’ countries. It’s time to say ’yes’ to the Senate solution.”
Mr. Trump announced last year that he was phasing out the Obama-era deportation amnesty that’s protecting nearly 700,000 illegal immigrant “Dreamers.” He said Congress needed to pass new protections, with the full backing of law, by the March 5 phaseout deadline.
Congress, though, has struggled to coalesce around a bill.
Leaders hope to reach a compromise by Feb. 8. If that doesn’t happen, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised to start the debate anyway by bringing some bill to the floor.
The White House, in remarks prepared for Mr. Trump’s speech, said he wanted his four-point framework to be that bill.
His plan would couple citizenship rights for 1.8 million illegal immigrants with a $25 billion trust fund to build his border wall, strict limits to the chain of family migration, and elimination of the Diversity Visa Lottery that gives away 50,000 immigration passes per year, based on chance.
“I know that the Senate is planning to bring an immigration bill to the floor in the coming weeks, and I am asking today that the framework we submitted be the bill that the Senate votes on,” Mr. Trump was supposed to say according to the prepared remarks.
In the actual delivery, Mr. Trump began the statement but never finished it, detouring instead into praise for the flexibility he said he’s shown in negotiations.
He said it’s up to Democrats to decide whether to filibuster his plan.
“We’ll either have something that’s fair and equitable and good and secure, or we’re going to have nothing at all,” he said.
Democrats and conservative Republicans have both rejected the White House framework, with the former saying they reject the changes to legal immigration, and the conservatives saying they can’t accept an amnesty for 1.8 million people.
Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, one of the advocacy groups that has pushed Democrats to demand a more generous legalization, said Mr. Trump’s “racist” framework is making it harder to reach an agreement.
“The White House plan is a non-starter for immigrants, their allies and all Democrats,” he said.
With agreement elusive, those on both sides are beginning to eye a slimmed-down middle ground that would grant Dreamers a permanent legal status, though without an explicit pathway to citizenship, and would fund the border wall, but wouldn’t pursue the changes to the legal immigration system.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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