[W]ASHINGTON — With less than a month remaining before a popular immigration program is set to expire, the Senate has begun a free-for-all process that could set the course for the future of program Monday.
Staff for the two senators from Vermont say the lawmakers are preparing for the debate. Both Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy have voiced their support for DACA.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, is set to expire in March after the Trump administration began to wind down the initiative last year. Under the Obama-era program, some undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children can get two-year work permits and stays from deportation.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised Democrats that he would allow a floor vote on the issue of immigration in January, part of the agreement lawmakers made to reopen the government after a three-day shutdown.
The result is an unusual process where debate is beginning on the issue without a base bill at the center of the discussion. Senators will bring many different proposals and amendments to the floor over the coming days. The final package will need 60 votes to pass and go to the House.
The fate of any legislation in the House remains unclear. House Speaker Paul Ryan has not offered any guarantees that a bill would move forward.
So far, lawmakers have introduced proposals across the political spectrum.
One option, introduced by a Democrat and a Republican, would offer legal status to young undocumented immigrants and also include some funding toward President Donald Trump’s much-touted wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Another plan with backing solely from Republicans aligns with an outline Trump offered in his State of the Union address last month, which would create a path to citizenship for the 1.8 million undocumented people who arrived in the country as children — a priority for Democrats.
However, it includes several measures Democrats staunchly oppose, including funding for a wall and major reforms to the immigration system.
Staff for Leahy said the senator is preparing legislation he has previously drafted to potentially offer as amendments over the coming days.
Leahy presided over an extended debate on immigration reform in 2013 when he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. The bill that came out of that discussion passed the Senate that year on a 68-32 vote, but died in the House.
Leahy spokesperson David Carle said the specific legislative language the senator might introduce “remains to be seen.”
Carle said it’s “anything but clear” if the bill will end up as a narrower measure focused strictly on the DACA program and border security, or whether it will become a broader immigration reform bill.
Sanders does not have any legislation prepared for the debate at this point, nor has he been a lead negotiator on any particular proposals, according to his spokesperson, Josh Miller-Lewis.
However, Sanders has frequently raised the abolishment of the program as “the great moral crisis of our time,” and said the lack of a provision to extend DACA was one of the main reasons he opposed the major budget package Congress passed last week.
“Clearly the most important thing in this whole debate is making sure that we protect the 1.8 million Dreamers and hopefully their parents as well,” Miller-Lewis said Monday.
Miller-Lewis would not say if there are particular initiatives that would break Sanders’ support for a bill.
“The basic thing is these Dreamers need to be protected, and obviously the point of this week is to figure out how to get there,” he said.
Meanwhile, some immigration advocates were irked that many Democrats — including Leahy and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. — voted for the budget package last week without securing a DACA extension.
Will Lambek, a spokesperson for the group Migrant Justice, said that the organization was “certainly disappointed” by their votes.
“The appropriations bill was the maximum leverage that Democrats could have had to extend protections,” he said.
Lambek said they were “hopeful” that Congress would pass legislation on DACA as a result of the process the Senate is undertaking this week. However, he said, they have concerns about any packages that tie the program to initiatives such as an increase in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents or more border enforcement.
The issue is a major one for Democrats nationally, however the impact on members of the Vermont delegation among voters at home is likely not to be significant, according to Eric Davis, political science professor emeritus at Middlebury College.
Davis said the biggest political impact would likely be on Sanders, who is considered to be a possible contender for the party mantle in the 2020 presidential race.
Though Sanders has not indicated whether he plans to run for the White House again, Davis said that he will likely look to keep pace on other rumored presidential hopefuls — including Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
“He does not want to be outflanked by anybody else who may have a more, let’s say anti-Trump policy than him,” Davis said.
For Leahy and Welch, their positions on immigration may come more from internal congressional politics, he said.
It’s possible the Senate will put together a package this week that will win support from moderate Republicans and Democrats, but will lose votes on the far ends of the spectrum. Davis said he could see Leahy supporting such a package, where Sanders may not.
Once it gets to the House, the prospects are an “open question,” Davis said.
