Wall Street Journal
By Andrew Ackerman
April 01, 2018
President Donald Trump suggested Sunday he was ruling out a deal with Democrats to legalize hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, calling on GOP lawmakers to instead toughen “our dumb immigration laws.”
In a series of morning tweets, Mr. Trump said “NO MORE DACA DEAL,” a reference to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which the administration announced last fall would end on March 5.
Mr. Trump has often expressed frustration with lawmakers across the board for not making an immigration deal, although top White House officials most frequently blame Democrats, saying they are holding up a solution for potential political gain. Some GOP and Democratic lawmakers counter that Mr. Trump hadn’t sought to lead the negotiations and has rejected bipartisan compromises.
Leading up to the deadline, Congress and the administration were unable to agree to a deal on the fate of the roughly 690,000 immigrants shielded from deportation under the program. Meanwhile, two federal judges issued injunctions blocking plans to end it for now and ordered administration officials to continue to process renewals. As a result, Congress doesn’t face an imminent deadline to act, and lawmakers appear to have given up trying for now.
Mr. Trump had sought a deal that would give DACA-eligible people a path to citizenship in exchange for a set of conservative changes to immigration policies. He rejected a deal that would give him $25 billion for a border wall and other security measures as well as the DACA legalization because it didn’t also restrict family-based immigration and end the diversity visa lottery, which gives people from underrepresented countries a chance to come to the U.S.
While Congress has yet to agree to any legislation affecting DACA, a spending bill passed by Congress included $1.57 billion for construction of physical border barriers and other security measures. The measure paid for 33 miles of new miles of fencing, about half of what the president had requested for the year.
Mr. Trump had expressed disappointment that the funding deal didn’t include a deal on DACA, but Democrats said it was his fault for being unwilling to compromise. Mr. Trump at one point said he was unwilling to sign the spending bill because it didn’t include a DACA deal, then signed it.
In his tweets Sunday, Mr. Trump rebuked Mexican authorities for “doing very little, if not NOTHING” to stop immigrants “flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S.” He threatened to “stop their cash cow, Nafta [the North American Free Trade Agreement],” unless Mexico stops “the big drug and people flows.”
Mr. Trump, in Palm Beach, Fla., also said before entering an Easter church service Sunday that “Mexico has got to help us at the border.”
“A lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of DACA,” he said. “And we’re going to have to really see.”
People arriving in recent years, and future migrants, aren’t eligible for DACA.
He also tweeted that U.S. Border Patrol agents are “not allowed to properly do their job,” citing “ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws.” “Getting more dangerous. ‘Caravans’ coming.”
He also urged Republicans to “go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW,” renewing his call for Senate leaders to abolish a 60-vote threshhold required to clear procedural hurdles in the chamber and instead allow bills to advance with a simple majority. Such a move would boost GOP power at least in the short-term—they hold 51 of 100 Senate seats—but it is seen as unlikely due to little enthusiasm in the Senate for the change. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) repeatedly has said there is no appetite for changing the 60-vote threshold.
“Time and time again, the President has walked away from bipartisan proposals that are exactly what he asked for,” said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) “When an agreement to protect the Dreamers is reached, it will be despite this President rather than with his leadership.”
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