The optics is really bad for republicans though. If democrats can squeeze votes out of dreamers' hardship for 18 years, then why would republicans not just attempt to legalize dreamers?

- If democrats deny it, it shows that they were just using dreamers for votes.
- If democrats pass it, it'd remove democrats' ability to campaign on it. Democrats would have to find some other immigration issue and those are significantly harder to convince the public. For example, adults that came illegally (you can no longer use the argument that they came through no fault of their own & they don't speak the native language of their country).

Plus in terms of immigration, dreamers would make the best immigrants. Americanized and educated in America. No criminal records & young people. The economy is doing really well and deporting 700k people would actually hurt it because businesses won't be able to find workers, not to mention the cost of deporting 700k people. People that are working or in school are very settled in and integrated to the community already.

It really makes no sense to me from a purely economic & safety view of why the republicans aren't offering dreamer legalization.