If Democrats want to stop family separations at the border, they’ll get their chance in the vote on the House GOP’s new compromise immigration bill, now slated for Thursday night, Speaker Paul D. Ryan said Wednesday.
The compromise, released late Tuesday, grants legal status to illegal immigrant “Dreamers” and creates a pathway to citizenship for them and for other children who came to the U.S. on their parents’ visas. It also funds President Trump’s border wall, limits the future chain of family migration, ends the visa lottery and closes “loopholes” that have made it difficult to hold and deport illegal immigrants.
And in a major new addition, the bill will allow families nabbed at the border to be held in family detention facilities under control of Homeland Security, rather than the Justice Department, as they await criminal proceedings for having jumped the border. The Justice Department doesn’t have family facilities, which has led to the separation issue that’s dominated Washington in recent days.
“We’re saying just stick with DHS. And oh by the way, we’re going to finance facilities so [families] can be taken care of,” Mr. Ryan said in describing the new provision.
Republicans are not sure whether they’ll have the 218 votes needed to approve the bill. They’re unlikely to get any support from Democrats, who oppose Mr. Trump’s border wall, want a more generous amnesty, oppose the new enforcement measures — and say it’s up to Mr. Trump, not Congress, to stop family separations.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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