In a nutshell: the Senate leadership agreed to a spending deal for the next two years, without any provision for DACA and Dreamers. They say the Senate will begin debate on DACA on Friday.
Timeline:
February 6: House passed a spending bill on Tuesday, which had no chance of passing in the Senate. The House bill DOES NOT include any immigration provisions: no deal on DACA.
February 7: Senate leadership reached a deal on Wednesday afternoon. This deal includes:
- Raising spending caps set by previous Congresses through September 2019
- Increased domestic and military spending numbers for this year (through September 2018) and next year (through September 2019)
- Raising the debt ceiling
The Senate deal DOES NOT include any immigration provisions: no deal on DACA.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi spoke for more than six hours on Wednesday afternoon and into the night, demanding action on DACA.
February 9: The full Senate will vote on Thursday to keep the government open through March 23, giving Congress time to hammer out language on a full budget bill covering the fiscal year that ends on September 30.
After the Senate vote, the bill goes to the House. Many Republican deficit hawks in the House are expected to vote against the Senate deal. That probably means the bill cannot pass the House without some Democratic votes.
If the House and Senate both manage to pass a bill, it goes the to Trump for his signature. He will probably sign it and claim it is a victory.
February 9: Senator Mitch McConnell has promised Democrats that he will bring a DACA bill to the Senate floor for debate. He has not said what bill that is. Or how long the debate will be. Basically, this is a promise to talk, but not a promise to act. And there’s no promise of anything at all in the House.
March 5: The Trump administration has ordered an end to DACA as of March 5.
However—anyone with DACA status can continue to work until that status runs out.
AND—at least two lawsuits challenging the DACA rescission are now before federal courts in California and New York. The federal judge in California has issued a preliminary injunction ordering the government to resume processing DACA renewals.
Before March 23: The Senate and House have to pass a funding bill for the current fiscal year, which is almost half over.
Senate Leaders Reach Deal to Raise Spending Over Two Years (New York Times, 2/7/18)
“The deal would raise the spending caps by about $300 billion over two years. The limit on military spending would be increased by $80 billion in the current fiscal year and $85 billion in the next year, which begins Oct. 1. The limit on nondefense spending would increase by $63 billion this year and $68 billion next year.
“But the accord was not without dramatics. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, took the House floor on Wednesday morning in opposition, protesting that the deal did nothing to bring lawmakers closer to protecting young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. She then delivered a record-breaking speech that tied up the House for the entire day and into the night….
“Neither party seemed to have any idea how the immigration debate would play out in the Senate in the days to come. Mr. McConnell has promised a free and open debate, with senators allowed to offer amendments to whatever measure is brought to the floor. But what the starting bill would look like remained a mystery.
“That’s the $64,000 question,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate. “Everybody wants to know, and Senator McConnell hasn’t told us.”
Congress’s massive budget deal, explained (Vox, 2/7/18)
“The emerging deal sets aside the question of immigration and what to do about the sunsetting Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which was at the heart of the standoff in January that ended in a three-day shutdown. Instead, the Senate is expected to take on the DACA question in a potentially chaotic open floor vote next week.”
Immigration Talks Stymied By Question Of What To Do About ‘Dreamers’ Parents (TPM, 2/7/18)
“Many Democrats and Republicans alike say they do not want families to be split up, and want to offer the parents some sort of temporary legal status….
“But several hardline Republicans in the House and Senate, many of whom also oppose President Trump’s call for a path to citizenship for Dreamers, say extending any form of legal status to parents would be intolerable….
“As Dreamers face the potential loss of their own legal protections, they have expressed concern that the information they handed over to the government to qualify for the program back in 2012 could be used to target their parents for deportation.
“That is a legitimate fear,” Columbus acknowledged. “It depends on whether the information is still current, and whether they live with their parents. We had language under the Obama administration to prevent information sharing between the benefits side and the enforcement side, to stop UCSIS from sharing that information with ICE. But in September they watered that down a bit so they could do that if they wanted to.”
Immigration news 