President Trump lobbed a ticking immigration time bomb at Capitol Hill with his decision to leave the fate of 800,000 so-called Dreamers in limbo. Congress has no idea how to defuse it, reports Politico. House Republican leaders, scrambling to avoid a government shutdown and a default on the nation’s debt, are privately hoping to push the immigration battle until at least this winter. They, like the White House, want a down payment on Trump’s border wall with Mexico in exchange for codifying the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. House Democrats won’t say whether they’d accept tougher immigration restrictions in order to save it.
Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Il.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), longtime immigration-reform advocates, Congress to take up a DACA fix this month. The Senate’s second-ranking Republican dismissed that possibility. “There’s no way,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas. Another powerful Republican on immigration issues, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, agreed, saying he doesn’t believe a stand-alone bill granting legal status to Dreamers can pass Congress by itself. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) flatly disagreed. “I think by and large, if you were able to have a stand-alone vote on a good product, [you] could pass it,” said Rubio, a member of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” that crafted a sweeping immigration bill four years ago. “If you start adding other things to it, that’s where I think it falls apart.” The political and policy hurdles cast doubt on the prospects of salvaging DACA. Congress has struggled with comprehensive immigration reform under multiple presidential administrations, in less polarized times.