President Trump made clear that Democrats “fully understand” he will not sign off on any legislation solution to extend Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients—“Dreamers”—without first getting funding to secure the border.
President Donald Trump trolled Democrats on Friday drawing a hard line on DACA, with a Tweet. In it, President Trump made clear that Democrats “fully understand” he will not sign off on any legislation solution to extend Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients—“Dreamers”—without first getting funding to secure the border, including building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Additional prerequisites were ending chain migration and the lottery system.
The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc. We must protect our Country at all cost!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017
According to a report by The Hill, Capitol Hill democrats are facing increasing backlash from their constituents after failing to successfully demand DACA protection in the recently passed short-term spending bill. They had backed themselves into this corner by promising not to leave DC for the holidays without a deal.
“We will not leave here without a DACA fix,” The Hill quotes House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as saying earlier in December.
In doing so, it seems they may have backed themselves into the corner as they are now under additional pressure to make good on this promise to “fix” DACA, and losing room to maneuver on their preferred brand of immigration reform which usually begins with amnesty “first” to be followed by border security measures later, if not separately.
President Trump is fully aware of it and ready to make a deal, and is using Twitter to stoke the grassroots on either side of the issue.
President Trump is fully aware of it and ready to make a deal, and is using Twitter to stoke the grassroots on either side of the issue.
This tweet is an echo of Trump’s September statements also making clear that DACA would be in exchange for “getting massive border controls.”
“We’re working on a plan – subject to getting massive border controls. We’re working on a plan for DACA. People want to see that happen. You have 800,000 young people, brought here, no fault of their own. So we’re working on a plan, we’ll see how it works out. We’re going to get massive border security as part of that. And I think something can happen, we’ll see what happens, but something will happen,” Trump said according to the pool report.
At the time, Trump explicitly put the DACA burden on Congress, saying that it needs a legislative resolution, not an executive one as put forth under the Obama administration.
Whether or not Trump wins may not come down to him holding their feet to the fire via tweet but if Democrats’ assumed need for legislative deliverance on DACA trumps their reservations for a border wall, visa restrictions or other security-minded “comprehensive immigration reform” measures as part of the deal. It is Democrats’ move.
