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Republicans quietly craft Dreamers deal

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Key Senate Republicans have begun privately discussing the contours of an immigration plan to shield the hundreds of thousands of Dreamers who will lose work permits and deportation protections starting early next year.

Preliminary talks show that influential GOP senators are eager to devise a legislative fix for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that could pass muster with both Democrats and President Donald Trump, who said he will start winding down the Obama-era program in March to force lawmakers to come up with a permanent DACA measure with significant border security and enforcement provisions attached.

In an interview, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, has convened a working group on immigration that includes himself and GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma, as well as other lawmakers. Sens. David Perdue of Georgia and Jeff Flake of Arizona also are among the Republicans who have been engaged in the talks, according to sources.

“There’s a solution to be had there,” Cornyn said. “But we just need to get on with it.”

A bipartisan DACA deal is in no way imminent. Democrats are waiting for Republicans to offer their list of demands in exchange for legalizing Dreamers. And an immigration package that gets through the Senate, even with GOP sweeteners, may have trouble in the more conservative House.

But some outlines of an agreement are becoming clearer. For instance, the senators have all but ruled out including a mandatory workplace verification system known as E-Verify in a final DACA agreement, according to multiple lawmakers engaged in the talks.

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A handful of Republicans have run ideas by Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Senate Democrat who first wrote legislation that gives Dreamers a pathway to citizenship in 2001. Durbin and Graham have been pitching the latest iteration of the DREAM Act, although Graham says he’ll need to secure some concessions from Democrats to lock down enough GOP votes. The DREAM Act, for instance, covers a much broader population than the estimated 690,000 immigrants who currently hold DACA permits.

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“We cannot put comprehensive immigration reform on the backs of these kids,” Durbin said in an interview. “That is unfair and the long list of things that Republicans want to do include many things that need to be saved for a later debate on a comprehensive bill.”

Still, Durbin expressed some optimism: “I think we’re at critical mass here in terms of the number of Republican senators once we reach an agreement. We haven’t reached an agreement yet.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/1...44082?lo=ap_b1