Jeff Flake: Senate to Vote on ‘Bipartisan’ DACA Bill in January

Unpopular Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said he believes Congress will put legalizing illegal immigrants who came to the country as children at the top of its agenda in 2018.

Flake made his prediction in a tweet Wednesday in which he claimed a bill will be “on the Senate floor in January.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the repeal of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in September, but the move gave Congress a six-month window to come up with a bipartisan solution. President Trump, despite his pro-America immigration stance, has supported Congress in its push to legalize the program.

Republicans and Democrats have been frantically working at doing just that, with it apparently taking precedent over border security measures that Republicans — who control the House and the Senate — claim to support.

Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) said this week that a group of House Republicans and Democrats were crafting an amnesty to push for passage either this week or at the beginning of the new year.  although House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has said repeatedly he does not expect an amnesty debate until January.

As Breitbart News’ John Binder has reported, a DACA amnesty deal has the potential to trigger a larger chain migration over the next decade that could bring anywhere from 1 to 19 million new foreign nationals to the U.S., further crowding out American workers from the labor force and driving down U.S. wages.

Some 17.5 percent of DREAM Act illegal aliens (280,000), would be on food stamps by 2027 according to the Congressional Budget Office. Twenty thousand of those illegal aliens would be immediately eligible for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits after the amnesty.

Flake, who has been a constant critic of President Trump, announced in October he would not be seeking re-election amid diving poll numbers and a range of popular conservative candidates eyeing his seat. He is also part of the group of senators working on legislation to “legalize” DACA.

Adam Shaw is a Breitbart News politics reporter based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.