Fractured GOP struggles with immigration strategy

A growing number of Senate Republicans are backing a scaled-back plan that would include only a DACA fix and a border security package — though the details of such an agreement would still need to be sketched out.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 3 Senate Republican, said the idea “may be the best we can hope for.”

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) also predicted that an agreement that is “much smaller than what the president is going for” is where Congress will end up.

“It’s probably going to be some sort of legal status for DACA recipients that gives them the permanence of legal status and then the border security,” Capito told MetroNews's “Talkline.”

But senators are increasingly looking for a back-up plan as talks among the No. 2s — Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) — have failed to produce a deal.

Staffers for the four lawmakers met again on Thursday. And members negotiating on the sidelines of the leadership-backed No. 2 talks argue that, rather than trying to force a solution on the chamber, they’re funneling their ideas through Durbin and Cornyn.

“Plan A would be whatever Durbin and Cornyn and the White House can agree on. ... But if they don’t, we want to make sure there’s a Plan B that’s narrower,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who is part of a group being led by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).


House conservatives, separately, say any narrow plan coming from the Senate is dead in their chamber, where leadership is under pressure to take up a wide-ranging bill from Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.)

And Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, is warning he could demand an agreement in order to help put up the votes to keep the government funded past Feb. 8.

“If we have a commitment on what we’re going to do on immigration, that moves things along,” he said on the sidelines of the party’s retreat, while also pointing to a demand for more defense spending.

GOP leadership has privately expressed skepticism that the Goodlatte bill has the 218 votes needed to pass. McCarthy pointed to the No. 2 talks as the group most likely to be able to get a deal to Trump’s desk.

“If something comes out of this group, it's more likely it's law,” he said, compared to “if they want something to just come out of the Senate, and then we can do something in the House and then we go to conference.”

But some Senate Republicans are pushing forward with the idea that the best way to win over the House would be to pass a bill with the support of at least 70 senators.

“I think if the Senate could pass a bill that could get somewhere around 70 votes and the president got behind it, then it would become law,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told radio host Michael Medved.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3...on-fight-looms

The blame for our deportation and loss of status will be on trump and the GOP

I blame Durbin and Schumer as well as the Republicans.

They cannot leave without an agreement on Dreamers. If the safety of Dreamers and the success of a dream act plan depend on these leaders, then we need to hold them accountable for all the support and hard work the immigrant community unconditionally gives them.

Legalization for all Dreamers (no age cap) + reasonable funding for border security - not to persecute families, in exchange for fiscal year funding.

All else belongs in a CIR plan.

It will be on both parties on my side. Both parties are using this issue politically in different ways.

I blame everyoneeeeeee.