According to The Wall Street Journal, Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Chris Coons will be making a bipartisan attempt to reach a budget deal with a new immigration bill before the government is forced to shut down on Friday.
From the sounds of it though, the chances of Trump being in favor of the piece of legislation seem unlikely.
The bill will provide a path to citizenship for immigrants enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — immigrants who arrived to the United States as children — but it doesn’t give Trump the funding he desperately wants for the extremely expensive and unrealistic border wall he’s been promising his supporters for the past two — nearly three — years.
Though Trump has repeatedly promised that DACA recipients have nothing to worry about and that he’ll be handling them “with heart,” he’s had no problem using them as bargaining chips for his wall after putting an end to the program last September. Ever since, he’s tried forcing Democrats to agree to fund his fence in exchange for the protection of DACA enrollees.
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In a statement to The Journal, McCain said:
It’s time we end the gridlock so we can quickly move on to completing a long-term budget agreement that provides our men and women in uniform the support they deserve. While reaching a deal cannot come soon enough for America’s service members, the current political reality demands bipartisan cooperation to address the impending expiration of the DACA program and secure the southern border.
Given how stubborn Trump has been so far and the lack of success similar bills have had, the chances he’ll warm to this new proposal don’t seem likely.
