DREAM Act Portal Forum - Border crisis stymies Congress as GOP bashes Biden and Democrats spar internally over

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Border crisis stymies Congress as GOP bashes Biden and Democrats spar internally over

Graham already backtracking on the idea of legalizing DREAMers.

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And yet even Republicans who have been open to more liberal immigration policies are shutting the door to that approach now as the party rails on President Joe Biden for not doing more to contain the crisis, meaning finding the necessary 60 votes in the evenly divided chamber to advance any immigration bill remains a daunting task.

The likely result: Legislative gridlock, especially on a comprehensive immigration bill resembling one passed out of the Senate with 68 votes eight years ago, with Republican advocates of that bill abandoning it now and top Democrats saying there's virtually no chance enough GOP senators will back a plan that includes a pathway to citizenship to the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally.

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"It is going to be very easy to do something if this administration wants to control the borders, which right now, they don't want to," said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, when asked about moving piecemeal proposals.

"I've said for a long time: The right wants to load up 11 million people and get them out of the country or they ain't going to vote for the bill, and the left wants to legalize, or give everybody citizenship yesterday," Grassley said. "And you can't get 60 or 70 votes when that's what you're faced with."

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Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and author of the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill, told CNN that now isn't the time for legislation to legalize recipients of the DACA program.

"I am all for taking care of the Dreamers, but you don't want to take care of them and at the same time incentivize another way to legal immigration so the window right now to do anything doesn't exist because that flow on the border has to be controlled," Graham said.

Other Republicans say that any effort to legalize Dreamers or expand visas for farm workers will need to come with robust border security provisions, which could alienate progressives from backing a final deal.

"I think there are a number of us who are willing to work on immigration bills, but it does have to be very targeted and deploy some of the vetting practices we want to see," said Sen. Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/16/polit...ate/index.html