Even as Trump puts immigration first, DACA remains uncertain : NPR

In this file photo, representative Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., Expressed himself during an event in Capitol Hill on May 1, 2024 in Washington, DC.

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Images Leigh Vogel / Getty

The Congress Republicans are waiting for President Trump to point out that he is ready to negotiate a permanent solution for beneficiaries of the delayed action program for children’s arrivals, or DACA.

Over the past decade, the DACA has received various degrees of support from the Republican legislators. The program, created in 2012 to protect children who arrived in the country illegally before 2007 from the expulsion, now benefits from around half a million people. In recent months, there have been reports of beneficiaries of the DACA without judicial relaxation held by federal immigration officials despite the protection that the program offers against the application of immigration.

While Trump extends the scope of his mass expulsion effort reinforced by the funding of Congress records, the defenders of immigration and the Democrats raise that those of the DACA can be caught in the reticle. This year, nearly 20 DACA beneficiaries were held by immigration officials, according to the group of immigrants’ rights, it is here. But republican legislators open to a solution are still referring to the executive branch to negotiate an agreement.

“I understand that they are undocumented. I understand that they have violated the law. I understand. But they are necessary in the economy and that someone gave them a job,” said representative Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican from Florida who, earlier this year “President Trump is a guy who makes things happen and he can do it. And I am sure that he will be able to realize larger America. “

Salazar’s bill received bipartite support. But in interviews with republican legislators who previously supported a way to legal status for the DACA recipients, almost all legislators were clear: Trump must be the only one to start talks.

Trump has spent most of the campaign to offer to launch the greatest effort to expulsion from American history. Although he has sometimes expressed his support for the search for a political solution for certain groups, such as agricultural workers and other migrant workers, there has been little effort to do so.

“The main priority of the application of immigration to the Trump administration is the cessation and elimination of the dangerous violent and illegal criminal foreigners that Joe Biden flooded our southern border – of which there are many,” said Abigail Jackson, spokesperson for the White House. “America is safer due to President Trump’s immigration policies.”

The DACA coalition weakened in Congress

In 2017, 34 Republicans signed a letter urging the president of the then, Paul Ryan, to pass a permanent solution for the DACA after Trump tried to cancel the program, arguing that “reaching the aisle to protect the beneficiaries of the DACA … is the right thing to do”.

But the strategists and the defenders of immigration said that the coalition of the Republicans supporting the DACA has shrunk over the years, as well as the sense of urgency to find a solution after the failure of Trump’s first attempt to repeal the program. Among these 34 Republicans who signed this letter, only eight are still voting members in the House.

“Allowing the DACA to go forward has become a hot political potato for the Republicans,” said Muzaffar Chishti, principal researcher at the Non-Partisan Migration Policy Institute. “The Congress always tries to kick the can in the street.”

In his first network interview after winning the elections, Trump said he would be open to negotiating an agreement for the DACA with the Democrats. More recently, the border tsar Tom Homan told journalists from the White House that “nobody favors the DACA” for the application.

On the hill, the strategists said that this start of the administration’s mandate, it could be a large -scale order to consider managers of the immigration application of the cabinet at the negotiating table with the Democrats of Capitol Hill who would be necessary to see a correction of the Congress.

“The position of the Trump administration is that the only thing that is important on immigration is to close the border. Almost everything [else] To this administration seems secondary, “said Chishti.” As long as it does not change as the signal of President Trump, I do not think that we will see a lot of movement of the Republicans in the Chamber or in the Senate. “”

House is the hope of a bipartite agreement

Attempts to work through the aisle can be seen scattered throughout the room. The strongest effort is apparently of the Salazar representative.

“I have no doubt that we have started a national conversation on what we are going to do with these people, including the children of the DACA, who have roots in the country, who have worked, paying taxes and do not have a criminal record,” said Elvira Salazar in an interview. “This is the national conversation we need to sit on the table and in particular the GOP, my party and my president. We can certainly solve it.”

Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Penn., Said that his support for the DACA had not hesitated. Member of the Caucus Solvers problem, it was joined by other members of the Caucus earlier this month to announce that the group would provide a framework to, hope, launch negotiations on the legislation which could include the supply of a solution to those which have been here for decades.

“I look in America and look [at] How immigrants have built this country, “he said.” It is therefore really a question for my colleagues as to whether they see America in this way. “”

In addition, earlier this year, the Caucus sent a letter to the White House asking for a meeting to discuss a bipartite compromise on immigration. For the moment, the objective is to offer a general framework.

However, there must be a solid directive of Trump in order to move the process, reiterated Todd Schulte, president of FWD.US, a defense organization of immigration.

“The political reality here is that it could break our fingers and tomorrow we will have an intelligent conversation,” said Schulte.

However, any measure also needs bipartisan support in the Senate where enthusiasm is weak.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Rs.C., distributed the Dream Act in 2024, which would provide a path to legal status to people brought to the United States illegally as a child. Speaking at the Capitol with NPR, Graham said he had not seen any of the current efforts to make a lot of progress while the priority remained on the application.

“If you start to legalize someone now, it is only another magnet. So I want to turn off the magnets before doing anything,” said Graham.

Senator Thom Tillis, RN.C., who introduced measures to provide a path to legalization at DACA, said that he did not see the movement before the new year.

“I hope that the president will come back to what he said during his first mandate – he thinks there is room for legal immigration and more immigrant people legally here,” said Tillis.

Senator John Cornyn, who, in the past, spoke strongly about the need to provide a course for the beneficiaries of the DACA, said that he thought there were other advantages on the beneficiaries of the DACA in terms of immigration priorities of the administration.

“These young people who have now become adults have been in a very bad situation but do not see any prospect of immigration bills, including them, of any time,” said Cornyn. “Fortunately, the border has settled, but we still have a lot of people in the country who are under the last deportation orders should not be here. And I think at some point, I hope that we can have this conversation. But I don’t think so soon.”