Some pro-Trump conservatives who back the president’s immigration policy criticized his sweeteners for Democrats on Saturday. Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican who recently sparked bipartisan condemnation for racist comments about white supremacy, tweeted: “NO AMNESTY 4 a wall!”
Firebrand media personality Ann Coulter also tweeted that “Trump proposes amnesty.” She added: “We voted for Trump and got Jeb!” She referenced former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a 2016 GOP presidential hopeful who lost to Trump after he proposed more centrist immigration policy. Meanwhile, right-leaning radio host Erick Erickson said the initial reactions from his listeners showed conservatives were “livid.”
Trump said Saturday that he expected some Democrats to support the plan. However, none of the party’s senators — not even the handful of more centrist voices from pro-Trump states — had endorsed the proposal shortly after the president’s remarks.
The likely rejection still leaves unclear a path to reopening about a quarter of the government. In December, Pelosi rejected a potential plan to fund the wall, in exchange for legal protections or a possible path to citizenship for the immigrants.
When Republicans held both chambers of Congress last year, a more comprehensive agreement to resolve both issues fell apart. Trump rejected a deal that included $25 billion in border wall funding, along with legal status and a possible path to citizenship for up to 1.8 million undocumented immigrants. Lawmakers have sought a solution to protect the immigrants for years, and made it more of a priority when Trump tried to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in 2017.
“There seemed to be very little new” in Trump’s speech Saturday, said Carl Tobias, the Williams Chair in law at the University of Richmond School of Law. As the Supreme Court declined to take up Trump’s decision to end DACA in its current term, meaning it could remain intact for nearly a year longer, Trump’s three-year extension offer “means less,” he told CNBC in an email.
“His attempts to appear reasonable are not very persuasive when he offers so little that is new,” Tobias said. “If McConnell brings up a bill with these ideas, it may not even pass in the Senate and surely not in the House. The shutdown promises to continue.”
A conversation last year about immigrants with temporary protected status in part led to talks collapsing. Durbin said Trump referred to Haiti and African countries as “s—hole” nations.
The president later claimed the senator “blew DACA.”
— CNBC’s Javier David contributed to this report
from Viral News Reports http://bit.ly/2sBZwoI
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