DREAM Act Portal Forum - Congress opens door to fraught immigration talks

Quote:

With President Trump’s frustration with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) boiling over and a spike in migrants detained at the border, the White House is jump-starting its outreach to Democrats.

Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and acting DHS secretary Kevin McAleenan met Wednesday night with a group of Democrats—including Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the top Democrats on the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees—to make the case on why it’s time for Congress to resolve the “humanitarian crisis” along the border.

But Durbin was noncommittal about the chances that the latest round of talks will break the stalemate between Congress and the administration, which has rejected immigration deals that have emerged from the Senate.

“I can just tell you, this president has broken my heart so many times on immigration,” he told The Hill. “I start with a healthy degree of skepticism that we can do anything substantial.”

Other Democrats involved in the talks described them as “broad,” with no decision yet on the parameters for further negotiations. Lawmakers and the administration are expected to meet again after Congress’s two-week recess.

The path to getting a deal on immigration and border security is fraught with political and policy landmines, with bases in both parties likely to draw hard lines on what they could support in a potential agreement heading into the 2020 election.

Immigration talks have routinely collapsed on Capitol Hill amid deep policy divisions on crucial issues, including an unresolved fight over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a conservative push to cut legal immigration and the perennial battle over Trump’s controversial U.S.-Mexico border wall.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...igration-talks

I doubt this is going anywhere...but there are 'talks' going on.