President Donald Trump is revving up his deal-making skills today as he sits down lawmakers to hash out an immigration compromise.
Trump is bringing twenty legislators from both parties to the White House today to discuss a deal that would save the Dreamers from deportation and beef up border security.
Democrats are refusing Trump’s demands for a border wall and a total immigration overhaul, leading Sen. Chuck Grassley, who’s attending the Tuesday meeting, to declare the negotiations ‘doomed to failure’ yesterday on the Senate floor.
White House senior adviser for strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp positively told Fox this morning, however, ‘The president will deliver.’
Democrats are refusing Trump’s demands for a border wall and a total immigration overhaul, leading Sen. Chuck Grassley, who’s attending the Tuesday meeting, to declare the negotiations ‘doomed to failure’ yesterday
The Republican president who led a lucrative business before he was elected will personally make his case for a revamp today in a White House meeting that’s being attended by immigration reform advocates in the House and Senate.
‘President Trump looks forward to meeting with bi-partisan members of the House and Senate today to discuss the next steps toward achieving responsible immigration reform,’ the White House said Tuesday.
The statement provided to DailyMail.com on the meeting said: ‘The Trump Administration’s immigration priorities are clear: securing the border with a wall, closing dangerous enforcement loopholes; eliminating the visa lottery program and ending chain migration.’
GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham, David Perdue, Jeff Flake and Tom Cotton are among those participating from Trump’s party.
Democratic representatives include Sen. Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, Dianne Feinstein, and Bob Menendez.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy will represent GOP leadership in the meeting along with Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
The meeting follows on Durbin’s declaration on Friday that Trump was making ‘outrageous’ demands that ‘would undercut months of bipartisan efforts’ to protect Dreamers.
Durbin accused Trump of ‘trying to put its entire wish-list of hardline anti-immigrant bills – plus an additional $18 billion in wall funding – on the backs of these young people.’
‘President Trump has said he may need a good government shutdown to get his wall. With this demand, he seems to be heading in that direction,’ Durbin said.
GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham (center) David Perdue, Jeff Flake and Tom Cotton are among those participating from Trump’s party. So is Grassely (right)
Trump said during a Saturday presser at Camp David that Congress must fund the border wall he promised on the campaign trail or there would be no agreement.
‘The wall is going to happen or we’re not going to have DACA. You know, we want to get rid of chain migration. Very important. And we want to get rid of the lottery system,’ he said.
Trump also said that Democrats must approve his spending request for additional border security personnel, as well.
‘We all want DACA to happen. But we also want great security for our country. So important. We want to stop the drugs from flowing in. Very important,’ he said.
The president was at Camp David having a weekend summit with GOP leaders at the time.
Despite standstill in negotiations, he said he still believes a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals deal is possible.
‘I think it’s something that they’d like to see happen,’ he said of Democrats. ‘It’s something, certainly, that I’d like to see happen.’
Appearing on ‘The View’ from New York on Monday, Graham, who has become a key adviser to the president on immigration, optimistically told Dreamers, ‘Help is on the way,.’
The South Carolina senator agree with Trump that the diversity lottery had to go, though, because it’s a ‘stupid way to give out visas.’
Trump has claimed numerous times that awardees are bottom-dwellers who are intentionally displaced by their home countries.
‘They give us their worst people, they put them in a bin, but in his hand, when he’s picking them is, really, the worst of the worst. Congratulations, you’re going to the United States. Okay. What a system — lottery system,’ he said recently.
The meeting follows on No. 2 Democrat Dick Durbin’s declaration on Friday that Trump was making ‘outrageous’ demands that ‘would undercut months of bipartisan efforts’ to protect Dreamers. Durbin is also attending the meeting
In reality, it’s the State Department who picks diversity lottery awardees, and they are selected at random. State heavily vets them before they are allowed into the U.S.
Trump wants to move to a merit-based immigration system, nonetheless, in which high-skilled visa applicants would be prioritized.
‘They’re not sending us their finest, okay. When somebody gets picked in the lottery, we’re not getting their best people,’ he said Saturday. ‘So we have to get rid of the lottery system, we have to get rid of chain migration, and we have to have a wall.’
The president told a reporter that he expects all of the immigration reform components he’s demanding to be included in the compromise bill. He also said it’s still his belief that Mexico will pay for the border wall.
Last week Trump had a Republican-only meeting at the White House to discuss immigration. His Tuesday gathering includes top Democratic voices on the issue like Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois.
The meeting comes less than a day after Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said in a floor speech that immigration talks have stalled because of Democrats’ unwillingness to compromise.
‘Unfortunately, this body still isn’t closer to a legitimate and fair deal that promotes and protects the interests of the American people in a lawful immigration system, and provides a fair and equitable solution on DACA,’ he said.
‘Sadly, our good faith offers have consistently been rejected by Democratic leadership. Instead, they’ve decided to engage in a game of brinkmanship.
‘As the Democrats see it, it’s take it or leave it, their way or the highway. That isn’t good faith. That isn’t negotiation. And that approach is doomed to failure.’
Trump said during a Saturday presser at Camp David that Congress must fund the border wall he promised on the campaign trail or there would be no agreement
Schlapp, a senior communications official in the White House, subsequently lambasted Democrats as ‘hypocritical’ in a Tuesday morning appearance on Fox & Friends for backing away from border security measures after voting for the Secure Fence Act in 2006.
‘They were the ones in 2006 who basically supported these physical border barriers,’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s time for them to come to the table. Let’s strike a deal. The president wants to strike a deal with the Democrats, and the time is now to do it.’
Durbin, notably, did not vote for 2006 legislation. Feinstein, however, did.
The Illinois senator and Hispanic Democrats in the House are hoping to use a must-pass spending bill to force Trump’s hand on DACA this month.
The continuing resolution that’s keeping the government up and running expires on Jan. 19.
‘I will certainly vote against it, and I know most Democrats will vote against it,’ Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro told MSNBC on Sunday evening.
Castro said he can’t see his side accepting the border wall in exchange for Dreamer protection.
‘Well, I don’t see — I think that’s gonna be a very tough deal for the president to make. We don’t want to trade the lives of 800,000 people for a wall across the United States,’ Castro stated. ‘DACA should be handled with a clean Dream Act. And that if there’s elements of border security that President Trump and Republicans want to pursue, that they can pursue that in separate legislation.’
A memo that progressive group Center for American Progress is circulating that was obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation on Monday described the DACA standoff as a ‘moral imperative’ for Democrats that is ‘critical’ to their success at the ballot box.
‘If Democrats don’t try to do everything in their power to defend Dreamers, that will jeopardize Democrats’ electoral chances in 2018 and beyond,’ the memo warns. ‘In short, the next few weeks will tell us a lot about the Democratic Party and its long-term electoral prospects.’
Schlapp told Fox on Tuesday that Democrats would be jeopardizing national security by holding up military funding if they go the shutdown route.
‘I think the Democrats are really running a very big risk if they go in this direction,’ she said. ‘And here is a president saying come over to the White House, let’s talk, let’s get this done.’
The American people want the homeland protected and real immigration reform, she asserted. ‘That is why the president was elected,’ Schlapp said. ‘And the president will deliver.’