President Donald Trump is conducting golf course diplomacy this Columbus Day.
Trump hit the links this afternoon with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a senator who will be key to his immigration reform plans.
Graham is a co-author of the Senate’s Dream Act, legislation that would grant illegal immigrants who came the U.S. as children lawful status, and he was one of four Republican senators who hammered out a bipartisan immigration deal that failed in the last administration.
Trump is trying to hash out a deal now with lawmakers in the upper chamber to overhaul the immigration system and provide funding for his border wall as part and parcel to legislation that protects Dreamers.
President Donald Trump is conducting golf course diplomacy this Columbus Day
Trump hit the links this afternoon with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a senator who will be key to his immigration reform plans
Graham is a co-author of the Senate’s Dream Act, legislation that would grant illegal immigrants who came the U.S. as children lawful status, and he was one of four Republican senators who hammered out a bipartisan immigration deal that failed in the last administration
Graham has had his ups and downs with Trump, having condemned the president’s response to the Charlottesville race riot in August. The Republicans also competed against each other for president.
They turned a corner last month, though, when Graham took a last stand in the Senate to pass health care reform legislation. Trump backed the effort that failed in the planning stages when it became clear that Republicans did not have enough votes to force through a bill.
The senator’s legislation helping Dreamers, a bipartisan bill he crafted with Illinois Dem. Dick Durbin, would give qualifying illegal immigrants lawful permanent residency status and put them on a pathway to American citizenship.
It goes further than the White House is willing to go on that issue.
A senior official told reporters Sunday on a call tied to Trump’s immigration roll out: ‘I think that as we look to legalize the status of DACA recipients, we are not interested in granting citizenship.’
The president sent lawmakers a long list of policies and principles he expects immigration reform to adhere by on Sunday evening.
In a letter to lawmakers, Trump said, ‘our porous southern border presents a clear threat to our national security and public safety.’
‘The Administration therefore proposes completing construction of a wall along the southern border of the United States,’ Trump said, asking legislators not only to ensure the project is funded, but to authorize the Department of Homeland Security to raise, collect and process ‘fees from immigration benefit applications and border crossings’ the help pay for the wall.’
Trump also pushed for a merit-based immigration system and a formal requirement that sanctuary cities that protect illegal immigrants from deportation be stripped of certain federal grants.
‘We would expect Congress to include all of these reforms in any package that addresses the possible status of DACA recipients so that we’re ending illegal immigration and we’re solving the problem of chain migration once and for all,’ a senior official said on the call.
‘The other views had their fair day in the democratic process, and the American people voted for the reforms outlined in this package,’ the official said, referring to the legislation that Graham and a group of seven other senators sponsored in Senate in 2013.
That legislation passed the House by a wide margin and stalled in the Republican-run House. Barack Obama responded by with the creation of DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
Trump said last month that he would end Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program shielding Dreamers from deportation. The administration says it is unconstitutional in nature because the program was created through an executive action and not by legislation.
The president is sympathetic to the Dreamers’ plight, and he told Schumer and Pelosi and Schumer last month, Trump agreed to DACA legislation that’s separate from his immigration overhaul.
Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House, and Chuck Schumer, the leading Senate Democrat, accused Trump of reneging on his promise in a joint statement on Sunday evening that slapped down his proposal all around.
‘The Administration can’t be serious about compromise or helping the Dreamers if they begin with a list that is anathema to the Dreamers, to the immigrant community and to the vast majority of Americans,’ the Democrats said.
‘We told the President at our meeting that we were open to reasonable border security measures alongside the DREAM Act, but this list goes so far beyond what is reasonable. This proposal fails to represent any attempt at compromise.
‘The list includes the wall, which was explicitly ruled out of the negotiations. If the President was serious about protecting the Dreamers, his staff has not made a good faith effort to do so.’
The White House was quiet on Monday as the president and his staff celebrated Columbus Day. Trump took Graham out on the golf course, though, presumably to talk to him about immigration.
Graham has said that Trump was ‘right to terminate’ to terminate DACA because it was an example of executive overreach in the last administration.
‘I think he could be a good spokesman for this compromise of border security plus the Dream Act,’ Graham said at the time. The senator said, ‘There’s a deal to be made between the Dream Act and border security.
‘But the President has to lead that effort in the House.’