Phil Mattingly – immigrationcourtside.com

🤮KAKISTOCRACY KORNER: Trump Regime’s “Malicious Incompetence” 🤡 Bankrupts Once-Self-Supporting Government Agency — With No Mission, No Leadership, No Integrity, & Low to No Morale, USCIS Seeks “Taxpayer Bailout” 💸🔥 From Congress!

CNN Digital Expansion 2019, Geneva Sands

https://apple.news/AOZfzNDVvT0Oxx63CeRSlyw

Geneva Sands & Phil Mattingly report for CNN:

Federal immigration agency to furlough employees unless Congress provides funding

6:05 PM EDT May 26, 2020

US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency responsible for visa and asylum processing, is expected to furlough part of its workforce this summer if Congress doesn’t provide emergency funding to sustain operations during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Unfortunately, as of now, without congressional intervention, the agency will need to administratively furlough a portion of our employees on approximately July 20,” USCIS Deputy Director for Policy Joseph Edlow wrote in a letter sent to the workforce on Tuesday.

Earlier this month, the agency — which has 19,000 government employees and contractors working at more than 200 offices — requested $1.2 billion from Congress due to its budget shortfall.

Since then, the agency, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, has been working with members of Congress and their staffs to educate Capitol Hill on the agency’s finances and operations.

Communications from the agency to Congress have grown more urgent as the threat of potential rolling furloughs could number in the thousands, according to one source familiar with the discussions.

The goal would be to attach the needed funds to the next coronavirus relief bill, which lawmakers plan to negotiate next. Still, with both parties far apart on any resolution, there is currently no clear pathway for lawmakers to fulfill the emergency request.

The immigration agency is primarily fee-funded and typically continues most operations during lapses in funding, such as last year’s government shutdown. However, during the pandemic the agency suspended its in-person services, including all interviews and naturalization ceremonies.

“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, USCIS has seen a dramatic decrease in revenue and is seeking a one-time emergency request for funding to ensure we can carry out our mission of administering our nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity, and protecting the American people,” said a USCIS spokesperson.

The agency proposed a 10% surcharge on USCIS application fees to reimburse taxpayers at a later time. USCIS previously estimated that application and petition receipts will drop by approximately 61% through the end of fiscal year 2020, exhausting funding this summer, according to the agency.

Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst for the US Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, told CNN earlier this month that USCIS’ depleted funds are the “inevitable result” of the administration’s policies, which decreased the number of petitions — and thus fees — received by the agency.

“Between the end of fiscal years 2017 and 2019, USCIS received nearly 900,000 fewer petitions. This decrease was largely driven by the administration’s own decisions, such as ending Temporary Protected Status for nationals of several countries or drastically decreasing the number of refugees admitted to the United States,” she said.

. . . .

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Read the rest of the article at the link.

Sarah Pierce of MPI is totally right! This self-created “emergency” has to do mostly with the Trump regime’s ill-advised decision to turn what was supposed to be an agency providing impartial, expert, professional services to the public, and specifically the immigrant community, into a “junior branch of DHS enforcement.”

The need for a bailout or huge fee increases appears specious. How about giving USCIS the money that the regime illegally reprogrammed for Trump’s unneeded wall or the money used to maintain unfilled detention spaces and unneeded detention programs?

Right now, USCIS is engaged in improperly “slow walking” naturalization applications to prevent new citizens from being able to vote in the Fall 2020 elections. As a minimum requirement for further bailout, Congress should require that the “Naturalization Program” be removed from USCIS and returned to the supervision of the Article III Federal Courts.

I actually was once a “big fan” of “administrative naturalization,” believing that it could be done most efficiently and with the best public service by adjudicators serving within the Examinations Branch of the “Legacy INS” which eventually “morphed” into USCIS. I supported the concept and helped lay the groundwork for it during my time at the “Legacy INS.”

The Trump kakistocrats have proved me wrong. The function is too important, too politicized, and too tied into the White Nationalist anti-immigrant agenda to remain within the Executive Branch. It also requires competent, professional, apolitical leadership which does not exist within today’s “DHS mass of disastrous politicized incompetence.”

PWS

05-27-20

TAL @ CNN: SENATE BUDGET DEAL FACES UNCERTAIN PROSPECTS IN HOUSE – But, “Dreamers” Appear Likely To Be “Left Behind,” At Least For Now!

http://www.cnn.com/2018/02/07/politics/house-democrats-daca-budget-deal/index.html

“House Democrats face choice over budget deal

By Tal Kopan, CNN

As lawmakers announced a budget deal that would address many of the issues stymieing Washington — with the key exception of immigration — House Democrats on Wednesday were feeling the heat.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took to the House floor Wednesday to warn she would not support the burgeoning deal without a commitment from House Speaker Paul Ryan that the Republican-controlled House would hold a debate and vote on immigration legislation as his Senate counterpart Mitch McConnell has pledged, setting up a potential standoff.

The two-year deal that leadership announced on the Senate floor would set domestic and defense spending levels, push back the debt limit and resolve some outstanding issues Democrats have pushed for like support for community health centers and disaster relief money.

But left out of the deal would be a resolution for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy that Trump is ending — and House Democrats have long been steadfast they would not support government funding without it.

The Senate is close, nevertheless, to sending the deal to the House with a continuing resolution that would fund the government into March, squeezing Democrats to risk rejecting a budget compromise over DACA alone, a position they have actively sought to avoid. Democratic votes in the House haven’t been necessary to pass continuing resolutions this year, but a number of House conservatives are expected to oppose the budget deal because of the domestic spending levels. That will force Democrats’ hand.

“The budget caps agreement includes many Democratic priorities,” Pelosi said in a statement. “This morning, we took a measure of our caucus because the package does nothing to advance bipartisan legislation to protect Dreamers in the House. Without a commitment from Speaker Ryan comparable to the commitment from Leader McConnell, this package does not have my support.”

Some Democrats were already backing up Pelosi as the deal was announced Wednesday afternoon.

California Rep. Eric Swallwell said while he supports a DACA fix, his concern was more about the size of the deal.

“I still have a real problem dramatically increasing the caps, adding to the deficit, when we just added $2 trillion for the tax plan. So if (Republicans) want to roll back their tax cuts so that we don’t have such a deep, deep deficit, I would be more receptive to that,” Swallwell said.

Congressional Hispanic Caucus member and California Democratic Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán said Democrats should not accept a funding deal without what they’ve asked for.

“No, I think that we aren’t using all the leverage we have and that’s a disappointment and I won’t support it,” she said. “We as a caucus have talked about making this one of our leverage points and using this as a leverage point. I hope that we continue to do that.”

But the objection wasn’t universal, and the mood in a House Democrat caucus meeting this morning that convinced Pelosi to speak on the floor was split, according to a Democrat in the meeting. Some were “understandably upset” about not including DACA recipients and there was “generally a lot of frustration.”

But others raised questions, asking, “What is our plan? What is our message? How are we going to win this?” After the last shutdown members are still unclear on the path forward and expect the Senate to pass this, leaving them little room. The source said there is a lot in the deal that many Democrats support, including the increase in domestic programs.

This source told CNN “a lot of people are going to vote for it. It’s not a situation where we can hold all our members.”

It’s unclear if Democratic leadership will whip against the bill. Asked Wednesday if leadership is instructing its members any particular way, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley demurred.

“People in our caucus will do what they think is in the best interests of their constituents and for the country,” Crowley said.

And Crowley didn’t commit to supporting or rejecting the deal.

“There is more to this deal than the issue of immigration,” he said, referencing the disaster relief money, in particular. “It is very complex. This There? is much more to this than simply one-off issues. And we’ll have to look at that in totality.”

Unlike recent past government funding deadlines, House Democrats have been holding their fire in pressuring their Senate colleagues to reject a deal that doesn’t address DACA. That has largely been because of McConnell’s promise to turn to a “fair” process on immigration after February 8, when the deadline comes.

“It’s hard, because we want them to be clear that this is reckless by the Republicans, but we are also clear that they want to keep the Senate and Congress moving so they have an opportunity, not just at getting a full year (funding) — stop doing (continuing resolutions) — but also to deal with other issues including DACA, by getting a vote on something,” said on Tuesday.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been one of the loudest voices for rejecting funding without an immigration deal, even marching from the House side to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office in December to urge him to hold the line. That pressure isn’t there this time.

“I don’t sense any,” said Arizona Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, a member of the caucus. But, he added, there’s “some trepidation” about the Senate process because of what could be added to a neutral bill — both in the Senate and the House.

“This has been the black hole for immigration, the House of Representatives, since I’ve been here, 15 years, and nothing comes out of here, and whatever goes to conference, if the House leadership has any say, it will get uglier,” Grijalva said.

But while Democrats were keeping their powder dry on a continuing resolution, as talk of the caps deal being near circulated, one Democratic House member said on condition of anonymity to discuss dynamics, that began to change. Tuesday night and Wednesday morning brought a flurry of communications between members, the lawmaker said.

“There is more support than yesterday on holding the line,” the member said Wednesday. “We shouldn’t negotiate the caps away without a DACA fix.”

CNN’s Phil Mattingly, Deirdre Walsh and Sunlen Serfaty contributed to this report.”

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I can’t see any “Bipartisan Dreamer Bill” along the lines being discussed in the Senate that will be able to pass the House as long as the GOP is in charge and Paul Ryan is the Speaker.

I also don’t see a “House Dreamer Bill” passing. The “Goodlatte Bill” — favored by many in the GOP –is so miserly in its Dreamer protections and has so much of the Administration’s White Nationalist restrictionist agenda attached that all or almost all Democrats and probably a “good-sized chunk” of “moderate” Republicans are likely to be able to defeat it.

But, while the Democrats and the GOP moderates in the House might be able to come up with a more reasonable proposal that actually could pass, like the Hurd-Aguilar Bill, under the “Hastert Rule,” Speaker Ryan won’t bring it to the floor for a vote because the bill would rely on a majority of Democrats for passage.

Given the foregoing scenarios, I don’t see where forcing another shutdown gets the Democrats. With the GOP and the White House opposed to including a narrower “Dreamers-Border Security Only” (only two of Trump’s “four pillars”) in a Budget Agreement, there isn’t a feasible “end game” for the House Democrats. They could force a shutdown, but I don’t think they will be able to force the GOP to include Dreamer protection in a Budget deal. So, ultimately, they will have to “fold,” as has happened in the past.

So, what’s the best result I could see for the “Dreamers” right now: 1) eventually getting a “temporary extension” of DACA from Congress, or 2) an “indefinite hold” on DACA recision from the Federal Courts (which wouldn’t preclude the Administration from going through a “Notice and Comment” regulatory process to repeal DACA). Either of those would only help those who qualify for the current DACA program — not the “expanded DACA” group. Either way, permanent relief for the Dreamers is likely to require “regime change” at least at some level.

PWS

02-07-18

TAL @ CNN TELLS US NO DACA BREAKTHROUGHS!

http://www.cnn.com/2018/02/01/politics/immigration-talks-groups-lack-progress/index.html

“Immigration negotiations: Lots of talk, little progress

By Tal Kopan, CNN

There are several groups in Congress who have been meeting regularly to try to reach a breakthrough on stalled immigration talks. But that doesn’t mean they’re making much progress.

Lawmakers are quick to bemoan the lack of forward motion on a fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, a program that protected young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children that President Donald Trump is ending.

The lack of progress stands in contrast to what Trump called in his State of the Union address Tuesday a “bipartisan approach,” despite no Democrats supporting his framework.

“We presented Congress with a detailed proposal that should be supported by both parties as a fair compromise, one where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs and must have,” he said, even as his proposal was dismissed as dead on arrival by Democrats whose votes will ultimately be needed to pass any compromise.

RELATED: What Trump’s State of the Union means for the immigration debate

Despite months of negotiations on how to preserve DACA and enact other measures like border security and White House-requested immigration overhauls, Congress still remains far from a clear path forward even as a deadline for government spending approaches.

“I wouldn’t say we’re making progress,” said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of the so-called “No. 2s” group, regular meetings of the seconds in command in both parties in both the House and Senate that have been coordinating with key administration officials.

“I would say we’re continuing, however, to try to winnow down what the discussion is about. We haven’t done it yet,” Hoyer said.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn similarly left a meeting last week of the group and characterized it as “wheel spinning.” Democrats have long complained their perception is the group mainly exists to slow down negotiations.

The circular talks, which sources in the room describe as mostly reiterations of positions that in most cases neither side is willing to cede, are indicative of a broader stalemate leading up to February 8 — when another short-term government funding bill is likely. After that, lawmakers await Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s promise to hold an open floor debate on immigration.

Likewise a group of roughly 20 bipartisan senators that formed out of the government shutdown at the last funding deadline has been meeting essentially daily to find common ground on the issue. But lawmakers in that group have similarly described a process of defining the issues, and have said their group’s work is mostly to generate ideas that will then be funneled to Cornyn and Democratic Whip Dick Durbin for further negotiation.

“We want to be deferential,” one of the group’s organizers, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, said after a meeting Monday. “We hope we might be able to be helpful to them by going through a series of concepts,” she added, saying the group had discussed various proposals out there.

Many of the lawmakers in the group have little prior specialty in immigration policy. North Dakota Democrat Sen. Heidi Heitkamp said that Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford has been working to brief the group on what the Department of Homeland Security wants out of negotiations, and the group does include one of the authors of the 2013 “Gang of Eight” immigration reform bill, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.

“I think that there’s such a discussion right now between process, how do you start, and then definitional, and I think the great work we’re doing in there is look, let’s get our facts in order, let’s get a unified sense of understanding,” Heitkamp said after one of the meetings of the group.

The groups’ efforts have attempted to find a path forward even after Trump rejected a bipartisan compromise negotiated by Durbin and a handful of other senators over months, declined a DACA for border wall offer from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and after the White House put out an aggressive framework that included a generous path to citizenship for the young undocumented immigrants but included a number of hardline requests that Democrats have said are impossible to swallow.

Some in the bipartisan group are already talking about narrowing the debate to just two issues — DACA and physical border security — even as others in the group reject that approach. Republicans like Cornyn and Lankford have said the White House’s “four pillars,” which include cuts to family migration and the diversity visa lottery and define border security broadly to include deportation authorities and other measures, have to be the starting point and can’t be narrowed down.

“If we can’t get a deal that includes that we may have to pair it down to two pillars and just do border and DACA as plan B,” Rubio told CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux on Wednesday. “But I know they’re going to try plan A first, and you know I’ve supported that and I continue to support limiting (family-based migration) to nuclear family.”

Meanwhile, the bipartisan group on the House side of the Capitol, the Problem Solvers Caucus, has proposed a compromise that hews very closely to the already-rejected proposal from Durbin, though the Senate has moved on from it. That group’s co-chairman, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, has been in touch with Collins and her Democratic co-organizer Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, about possibly bringing the two groups together to meet, the New Jersey Democrat told CNN.

All of the talk is setting the stage for a potentially messy floor debate in the Senate. Though McConnell has pledged to call something to the floor for an open debate process if no deal otherwise is reached by February 8, he has not made any statements about what he would call as a starting point. And with an open amendment process, the debate could get messy and any bill could be brought down by a poison pill amendment intentionally designed to tank the process.

Still, lawmakers are continuing to meet.

“I don’t know,” Durbin said of whether the plan to funnel ideas through him and Cornyn will work. “We’ve never tried anything like this. But I’m hopeful, and so is he.”

As for the No. 2s meeting he’s a part of, Durbin added, “We do have some looming deadlines. I hope that moves us.”

CNN’s Lauren Fox and Phil Mattingly contributed to this report.

****************************************

I find the stated position of Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) remarkable! Rubio himself is the product of an immigrant background. So, he knows first-hand the complete falsity of the GOP’s (essentially racist) claims about the “bogus” dangers of “Family Migration” (often pejoratively called “chain migration” by GOP restrictionists); the important positive role that family immigration plays in many ethnic communities; the important role that Family Migration has played in the United States and our economy as a whole since 1965; and the overall benefits of more, not less, legal immigration.

Yet he somehow feels that his own personal success has so far removed him from the immigrant community and the national interest that he can join the current elitist White Nationalist charade in bashing Family Migration! Pretty sad indeed.

PWS

02-01-18

CNN: ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE! — PARTIES HAVE ONE THING IN COMMON: Each Underestimated The Resolve Of The Other!

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/21/politics/donald-trump-government-shutdown-sunday-highlights/index.html

By Stephen Collinson, Phil Mattingly, Tal Kopan and Daniella Diaz, CNN

Updated 2:19 PM ET, Sun January 21, 2018

CNN)The government shutdown went into a second day Sunday with recriminations deepening between the parties and with no sign of progress towards ending the impasse.

The House and the Senate will be back at work by early afternoon, but after a day of futility on Saturday, there are few hopes of a sudden breakthrough to resolve a showdown over the refusal of Senate Democrats to vote to fund the government until President Donald Trump agrees to deal with the fate of 700,000 people brought to the US illegally as children.

The White House, and Republican and Democratic leaders spent most of Saturday apportioning blame as they sought to shape the political fallout from the shutdown that will only truly begin to hit home on Monday when government departments stay dark after the weekend as federal workers are furloughed.

“Everyone’s dug in. No movement at all from either side,” said a Democratic aide.

Trump had been hoping to be the star of the show at a glitzy fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida Saturday celebrating the anniversary of his inauguration. But he was forced to hole up in Washington when his trip was canceled because of the shutdown.

. . . .

Both sides are convinced they have the upper hand — one reason why the shutdown could last for a while.

Republicans feel confident that they’re on the right side of the shutdown. While House Republicans were the ones who failed to deliver the votes when the government shut down in 2013. This time around, members say they want their leadership to stand firm against Senate Democrats who they believe will feel the pressure sooner or later.

Democrats believe that the fact that the GOP controls the House, the Senate and the White House will prompt voters to blame Trump and his troops.

CNN’s Ashley Killough, Deirdre Walsh, Abby Phillip, Manu Raju, Kevin Liptak and Ryan Nobles contributed to this report.”

*********************************************

Read the complete article at the above link. Doesn’t sound promising; but, they are going to keep at it.

PWS

01-21-18

CNN: GOP LEADERSHIP APPARENTLY WORKING TO SCOTCH ANY CHANCE OF IMMIGRATION COMPROMISE, WHILE GOP HOUSE RESTRICTIONISTS THROW GASOLINE ON THE FIRE!

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/19/politics/republican-leadership-against-durbin-graham-bill/index.html

“Republican leaders pressure members against Durbin-Graham DACA bill

By: Tal Kopan and Phil Mattingly, CNN

Republican Senate leadership is waging a quiet, behind-the-scenes pressure campaign to encourage GOP members to not sign onto a bipartisan immigration deal.

Sources say the pressure is directed at members who might support a bill proposed by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, and Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, and rest of the so-called Gang of Six.

Two GOP sources with knowledge of the process say Republican leadership — including Sen. Mitch McConnell — has made clear to several members that it wouldn’t be helpful to the current Republican strategy to get onto the proposal.

Meanwhile, Congress remained hours away from a government shutdown on Friday.

Republican Majority Whip John Cornyn’s spokesman denied any active whip operation, pointing to Cornyn’s public statements against the bill.

“To write our office is whipping against their proposal (I haven’t seen a bill, have you?) is factually inaccurate. It could not be further from the truth,” the spokesman said in an email.

But sources close to the process say the pressure does exist.

Durbin and Graham have managed to lock up four Republicans — Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Susan Collins of Maine — in addition to the three Republicans that made up half of the “gang” to support the proposal so far — still four votes short of enough to muster the 60-vote threshold needed to advance the legislation if all Democrats join in. It still has not been introduced in legislative text form, but a description of the pieces of the bill has been made public.

President Donald Trump last week rejected the proposal, in vulgar terms, in an Oval Office meeting where it was presented to him.

The day before the Gang of Six unveiled their plan, Graham, Flake and Durbin were visibly working the Senate floor during a long FISA cloture vote. The three of them spoke at separate times with Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, for example, who voted for immigration reform before.

Asked if anyone was trying to undermine their efforts on the bill on Thursday, Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, himself a member of the GOP leadership, denied activity to tank a deal.

“I think there are probably people on the left and right who don’t want a solution; I don’t feel that anybody is actively working against a solution,” Gardner told reporters.

Graham and Cornyn have landed publicly on different sides of the issue. Asked about Cornyn’s assertion there would not be a short-term continuing resolution of a few days on Thursday, Graham replied: “Well then you need to tell Sen. Cornyn, I respect him a lot, but he needs to get 60 votes. Good luck.”

Government funding runs out at midnight on Friday and the Senate does not appear to have the votes for a House-passed continuing resolution into mid-February.”

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http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/18/politics/goodlatte-hardline-bill-freedom-caucus-deal/index.html

“GOP leaders promise to whip hard-line immigration bill

By: Tal Kopan, CNN

Conservative House members say they got a promise from leadership to pursue a separate hard-line Republican-only immigration bill in exchange for their votes to pass government funding Thursday night — a measure that several Republicans doubt could pass the House, let alone the Senate.

The bill is a proposal from key committee and subcommittee chairs Bob Goodlatte, Raul Labrador, Mike McCaul and Martha McSally that includes a large number of hard-line immigration provisions that Democrats and some Republicans have said are nonstarters.

Labrador told CNN after votes Thursday that the commitment to members of the House Freedom Caucus was “to actually whip (the bill) and to work on it like they did on all the other important bills we’ve done this year.” While there was no clear timeline for a floor vote, Labrador said that “should” be the goal.

More…http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/18/politics/goodlatte-hardline-bill-freedom-caucus-deal/index.html”

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Not looking good right now. Both sides digging in.

PWS

01-19-18

CNN: CURRENT STATE OF DACA NEGOTIATIONS: “A MESS!”

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/08/politics/daca-immigration-negotiations-latest/index.html

Lauren Fox, Phil Mattingly, & Tal Kopan report for CNN:

“(CNN)Republicans and Democrats will sit down with President Donald Trump in a bipartisan meeting Tuesday aimed at moving closer to protecting hundreds of thousands of immigrants from deportation, but a long-entrenched partisan divide over immigration policy and a looming budget deadline are threatening progress.

Republican and Democrats involved in negotiations over the must-pass January spending deal say that DACA — the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — has become the key to unlocking any funding agreement and some are frustrated with how negotiations are unfolding. Republicans charge that Democrats have all but halted talks on spending caps until there is a resolution on DACA, which gives undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children a chance to stay, work or study in the US without fear of deportation.
“Seems to me that Democrats are holding that deal hostage for a DACA negotiation and we are meeting at the White House tomorrow on a bipartisan basis with the President to see what that might look like,” said the Senate’s No. 2, Texas Republican John Cornyn. “But I think that’s going to make the January 19 date pretty hard to hit.”
“It’s a mess,” said one person directly involved in the negotiations.
A separate GOP aide said the broader environment for both parties simply “isn’t in a good place right now.”
Democrats argue the White House hasn’t been fully engaged to the degree it needs to be and say that a long and broad policy wish list released last week just further irritated Democrats working closely on the immigration compromise. One Democratic aide argued the White House’s list was “out of the realm of reality.”

Republicans can’t avoid Trump’s wall promises in DACA talks
“No wall,” said Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California. “Listen, I believe in border security. I think it’s very important that we have a secure border, but spending billions and billions of dollars on this wall because of a political promise and a campaign promise is ridiculous.”
What Tuesday’s meeting means
The meeting at the White House on Tuesday was expected to — at the very least — symbolize that Trump was growing more serious about finding a bipartisan resolution. But adding more tension to the anticipated meeting for Democrats is the fact the White House invited GOP lawmakers Democrats view as openly hostile to finding a consensus deal on DACA.
In the background, details are still being worked out on what a plan to help recipients of DACA would look like, and a bipartisan group of Senate lawmakers led by Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina continues to negotiate.
However, the tensions that existed in December but had been overcome with a holiday deadline are playing out in real time now between the two parties.
“I think this is going to be the flexion point where we get some things done or we don’t,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, said Monday afternoon on CNN.
On Capitol Hill, bipartisan talks have been ongoing for months and the group of senators led by Durbin and Graham acknowledge they need Trump to lay out clear priorities to move forward.
The thinking is that Trump — who secured the Republican Party’s nomination by promising mass deportations and a border wall — can offer political cover for Republicans who may be fearful of backing any immigration bill that is viewed as amnesty among their base. With Trump’s blessing, Republicans believe they can find a way to move ahead on DACA. Without it, the votes are compromised.
The bipartisan meeting at the White House on Tuesday comes after Trump met with Republicans last week at the White House and Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona refused to attend, citing the lack of bipartisanship.
White House chief of staff John Kelly, formerly the secretary of homeland security, will also be in the bipartisan meeting Tuesday and has been leading outreach to lawmakers on Capitol Hill on the ongoing talks.
Also on the list Tuesday are a host of lawmakers who would be expected, including Durbin and Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, a 2013 immigration reform veteran. But the list also includes red state Democrats like Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Jon Tester of Montana, as well as Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, who frequently votes with Republicans on immigration and border issues — a sign that the White House is looking to pick off as many Democrats as it can even if it can’t work with the party’s key negotiators.

The key for some negotiators attending the meeting is to convince Trump to keep any deal on DACA narrow. The agreement that is taking shape in Durbin and Graham’s group would offer a path to citizenship to DACA eligible immigrants, would include money for border security, would address the “chain migration” — or family-based sponsorship options — of the covered population and would end the diversity lottery in favor of reallocating those visas somewhere else, possibly to include a fix for Temporary Protected Status.
Flake told CNN he’s prepared to tell Trump on Tuesday that this DACA deal cannot include a whole host of immigration policy changes but instead has to be narrowly focused if Republicans want to succeed.
“This is not a comprehensive reform bill,” Flake said. “We can’t do one before March.”
More than one group pushing immigration plans
In addition to the bipartisan working group, conservatives including Cornyn and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa are having their own conversations, and Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma are also going to be at the White House on Tuesday.
In the House, multiple efforts are underway as well, many led by rank-and-file members. Republican Rep. Will Hurd of Texas and Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California have released their own bipartisan framework for a deal after weeks of negotiations. Aguilar is the whip for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. That deal focuses on DACA and border security, but the lawmakers hope additional measures could be added if necessary to finalize a deal.
The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus — including Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, a longtime DACA advocate — had also been working to reach a compromise that before the break was similar in concept to what the Senate group was working on.
And, as in the Senate, a group of more conservative Republican lawmakers are working on their own proposal, including House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul of Texas and House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, which would be strongly to the right of most of the bipartisan compromises. Both men will also be at the White House on Tuesday.
CNN’s Ted Barrett and Dana Bash contributed to this report.“

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Stay tuned!

PWS

01-09-17

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