Senate Democrats claim they have developed a new bipartisan amnesty plan for young ‘dreamer’ illegals – but their plan also offers a quasi-amnesty to the illegal-immigrant parents who brought the 3.25 million ‘dreamer’ illegals into the United States.
The amnesty-plus plan was developed by Sen. Dick Durbin, with the cooperation of several pro-amnesty GOP Senators, including Colorado’s Sen. Cory Gardner, Arizona’s Sen. Jeff Flake and Sen. Lindsey Graham from South Carolina. The claims and details emerged Thursday when the Senators were questioned by reporters after the Senators’ usual Thursday lunchtime meetings.
In an afternoon statement, the senators claimed:
President Trump called on Congress to solve the DACA challenge. We have been working for four months and have reached an agreement in principle that addresses border security, the diversity visa lottery, chain migration/family reunification, and the Dream Act-the areas outlined by the President. We are now working to build support for that deal in Congress.
The announcement comes one day after President Donald Trump formally backed a new immigration and amnesty bill drafted by four GOP leaders.
Details about the Democrats’ plan are still secret, but advocates say it extends the amnesty to include the several million illegal immigrants who brought up to 3.25 million illegal-immigrant children into the United States.
According to Politico, Flake told reporters that in their plan “Dreamers would be able to obtain a three-year provisional legal status that could be renewed.” If so, the Democrats’ plan — aided by several Republicans — would be proving a huge amnesty-like benefit to the foreigners who created the illegal immigration problem.
Media reports also said the Democratic plan would eliminate the visa lottery — as required by Trump — but would then assign the green cards to another Democrat-favored group, the roughly 300,000 “Temporary Protect Status” migrants. The migrants are poor people from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Haiti, and other disaster-prone undeveloped countries who have been given temporary permission to live in the United States. Their residency is now expiring because Trump’s deputies are refusing the extend the much-extended residency cards.
Flake also admitted to reporters that the Democrats’ have not agreed on a border security plan, which President Trump and the GOP is requiring — along with an end to chain migration and the visa-lottery — as part of any deal. According to the Hill, “Asked what was the biggest remaining hurdle, Flake pointed to a border security package ‘and what’s sufficient. That’s what we’re working on but we’ve pretty much got a bill.’
Administration and GOP officials are dismissing the Democrats’ amnesty-plus plan.
Sen. John Cornyn, who is now playing a leading role for GOP Senators, also dismissed the plan. “We welcome their contribution. It’s not going to be something that’s agreed to by just a handful of people,” he told reporters.
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, who joined the Democratic group, defended the giveaway when it was criticized by a GOP immigration expert, Sen. Tom Cotton. Senate Democrats would not agree to anything else, Graham explained.
Flake told reporters that the Durbin bill is the only choice for Republicans, “We’ve got this bipartisan group, we’re at a deal. So we’ll be talking to the White House about that and I hope we can move forward with it. It is the only game in town. There is no other bill.”
However, President Trump has already praised the Senate and House GOP bill.
The Senate SECURE Act bill was developed by Sen. Chuck Grassley. The House immigration and amnesty bill was introduced January 10 Reps. Bob Goodlatte and Mike McCaul, who chair the House judiciary and homeland defense committees.
On Thursday, House Speaker Ryan said he wanted a long-term fix to the illegal immigrant problem, not an no-strings amnesty, and he endorsed the Goodlatte/McCaul bill.
However, Ryan did not say that he would bring the bill to the floor for a vote, and suggested instead suggested he would defer to the “Group Of Four” leaders who are now talking about drafting an amnesty:
The group of four consists of GOP Sen. John Cornyn — a Texas Republican with a record of support for mass-immigration — plus House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is a California Republican with little history of immigration expertise. The two Democrats in the group are Sen Dick Durbin — a hard-line immigration-booster who has been pushing for an amnesty since 2001 — and Rep. Steny Hoyer, a former moderate who has moved left with the Democratic Party.
The Group of Four held its first meeting January 10.
Polls show that Trump’s American-first immigration policy is very popular. For example, a poll of likely 2018 voters shows two-to-one voter support for Trump’s pro-American immigration policies, and a lopsided four-to-one opposition against the cheap-labor, mass-immigration, economic policy pushed by bipartisan establishment-backed D.C. interest-groups.
Business groups and Democrats tout the misleading, industry-funded “Nation of Immigrants” polls because they which pressure Americans to say they welcome migrants, including the roughly 670,000 ‘DACA’ illegals and the roughly 3.25 million ‘dreamer’ illegals.
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