So this morning President Donald Trump gave an impromptu interview on Fox & Friends. He said he wouldn’t sign the moderate immigration bill that will go to the House floor next week. Now a White House official said the president misunderstood the question. From The Hill:
“Yes, we fully support both the Goodlatte bill and the Leadership bill. The President misunderstood the question this morning on Fox News,” the source said in an email. “He was commenting on the discharge petition/dreamers bill — not the new package. He would 100 percent sign either Goodlatte or the other bill.”Centrists had tried to use a discharge petition to force leadership to move on four different immigration proposals, including one backed by Democrats that protects so-called Dreamers, beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and the rest of House leadership managed to block that attempt earlier this week, and will instead bring forth a pair of immigration bills, including a more hard-line measure from Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.).
*ORIGINAL REPORT FROM THIS MORNING:
President Donald Trump delivered a blow to the House GOP during his surprise appearance on Fox & Friends this morning when he said he wouldn’t sign the “moderate” immigration plan. From CNN:
“I’m looking at both of them. I certainly wouldn’t sign the more moderate one,” Trump said. “I need a bill that gives this country tremendous border security. I have to have that. We have to get rid of catch-and-release.””We catch a criminal, a real criminal, a rough, tough, criminal. We take his name and then we release him. And we say please to show up to court in a couple of months. You know what the chances of getting him to court are? Like zero. OK? It’s crazy,” the President said.
The House GOP reached a deal earlier this week to vote on two immigration bills next week, which delayed a “discharge petition effort by moderates to force immigration floor votes on a broader range of proposals.”
Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) said “his group would agree to a vote on a compromise bill.” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) authored the more conservative bill.
Immigration has divided the GOP in the House and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) needs the moderates to pass a bill.
The moderate bill “would provide legal protections for undocumented young people known as ‘Dreamers’ while also providing $23.4 billion for a wall along the border with Mexico.” USA Today continued:
On one of the most contentious issues, the draft proposal would allow an estimated 1.8 million “Dreamers” to apply for “nonimmigrant status”– essentially a conditional legal visa – if they meet certain conditions. They must, for example, have a high school diploma or GED and must be under 36 years of age as of June 15.Those conditional visas would be taken from new restrictions on legal immigration included in the GOP bill; the measure would nix a diversity lottery program and limit family-based immigration. Once the “Dreamers” have taken the visa slots from those two programs, they will disappear – thus reducing legal immigration.If the “Dreamers” win that nonimmigrant status, then after six years, they can apply for a green card, which will set them on the path to eventual citizenship.
This compromise bill would also stop “separation of immigrant families seeking asylum at the border” and allow “children to stay with parents in the same detention facilities.”
The Goodlatte bill, Secure America’s Future Act, has what the White House wants and some more, according to National Review:
It abolishes the extended-family chain migration categories and the visa lottery, authorizes wall funding and extra border agents, cracks down on sanctuary cities and asylum abuse, and mandates E-Verify.It also would essentially codify DACA for its current beneficiaries, rather than open a whole new can of worms for 2 or 3 million “DACA-eligible” people, as all other proposals would do.
Trump already supports Goodlatte’s bill.
The House GOP basically needs everyone on board because more than likely all Democrats will oppose both bills because they want even more protection for Dreamers and do not approve funding of a wall.
It’s harder to pass a bill through the Senate since the GOP holds such a slim majority. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he would consider bringing an immigration bill to the floor if the president said he would sign said bill.
GOP leadership sends immigration bill to members by acohnthehill on Scribd
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