USA Today
By Alan Gomez
January 08, 2018
As Congress and the White House negotiate a deal to legalize nearly 800,000 undocumented DREAMers brought to the U.S. as children, they aren’t facing the usual pressure from hard-line groups lobbying for lower immigration levels.
“Rip off the Band-Aid and give them a green card,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, one of the groups that usually mobilizes against any effort to grant what they call “amnesty” for anyone who entered the country illegally.
Congressional leaders have until Mach 5 to restore deportation protections and work permits for DREAMers after President Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program established by President Barack Obama.
Roy Beck, who has led NumbersUSA for over 20 years and jokes that the organization is known as the “great anti-amnesty organization,” said: “We’re open to it.”
And Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said members of Congress wouldn’t face major backlash from his group’s supporters if they balance a DACA solution with extensive improvements to immigration enforcement.
“If those things are in place when the DACA recipients get their benefits, I think most of these members would have ample cover,” Mehlman said.
So why are those groups suddenly willing to go along with an “amnesty” deal? Because of how much they hope to get in return.
Democrats have long advocated legal status for all of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. In exchange, Republicans have pushed for enhancements to border security, immigration enforcement and changes to the legal immigration system.
Now, Democrats are trying to protect just the DACA enrollees while Republicans continue pushing for nearly all of their demands. Trump added to the GOP demands last Friday by requesting $18 billion over 10 years to reinforce or expand the border wall with Mexico to fulfill his signature campaign promise — though without Mexico paying the tab as he vowed.
“Democrats are coming to the table with 10% of our agenda, and Republicans are coming back and saying, ‘We want 90% of our agenda,'” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an immigration advocacy group.
Trump ended DACA in September, but gave Congress six months to pass a legislative fix.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are trying to tie the DACA debate to ongoing negotiations over a spending bill, which must be approved by Jan. 19 to avoid a government shutdown. They’re also trying to pass a DACA fix in a stand-alone bill paired with border security measures.
In recent years, the groups seeking reduced immigration have relied on lobbying, testifying before Congress and grass-roots mobilization efforts to kill any bill in Congress deemed too favorable to immigrants.
They have helped sink repeated efforts to pass the DREAM Act, which would allow undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children to qualify for legal permanent residency and, eventually, U.S. citizenship. And they helped torpedo a bill passed by the Senate in 2013 that would have allowed citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants in exchange for improvements to immigration enforcement.
Their reasons to accept a DACA deal vary. Krikorian said DACA enrollees are unique because it was not their decision to enter the U.S. illegally. To qualify for DACA, they had to enter the U.S. before their 16th birthday, receive an education or join the military and pass a security background check.
“There’s a good case to make that they really are Americans in everything but paperwork,” Krikorian said. “They’ve socialized here, they’ve studied George Washington as the father of our country and Abraham Lincoln as the president who freed the slaves. They’re already acculturated.”
Mehlman said this “amnesty” is different because it deals with a much smaller group of people.
The 2013 bill that passed the Senate, but was not even considered by the House of Representatives, would have allowed most of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants to become citizens.
“There is a defined universe of people,” Mehlman said. “No promises are made beyond that.”
The prospect of a lot in return is also key to the groups. In October, the White House issued a long list of demands in exchange for a DACA deal. They include a crackdown on “sanctuary cities” that don’t fully comply with federal immigration enforcement efforts, funding for Trump’s wall and a requirement that all U.S. business use the E-Verify online system to check the immigration status of job applicants.
Trump has placed great focus on two other demands: ending the diversity program that grants 50,000 visas a year to people from underrepresented countries, and restrictions on how many relatives U.S. citizens can sponsor for visas, which he called “chain migration.”
“We’re very encouraged by the way the president has been framing this issue,” Beck said.
Immigration advocate Sharry said the long list of demands could end up dooming the negotiations and the hopes that DREAMers can stay in the U.S.
“In September, you’ve got Trump saying, ‘Border security for the DREAM Act, a wall can wait until later,'” Sharry said. “Now you have Trump saying, ‘We need to end chain migration, we need to build the wall, we need to get rid of the diversity visa program, we need stronger enforcement…’
“They’re setting up an unworkable proposal.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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