A bipartisan group of six senators said Thursday they had reached an agreement on a plan to protect “Dreamers” and toughen border security — but the White House quickly shot down reports of a done deal.
“There has not been a deal reached yet. However, we still think we can get there,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a briefing.
But one of the senators, Trump-critic-turned-ally Lindsey Graham (R-SC), said he had already pitched the outlines to Team Trump in the hope that the president would climb aboard.
President Trump said earlier this week that if lawmakers could produce a bipartisan agreement that protected Dreamers and increased border security, he would sign it.
But he later added stipulations, including funding for his promised wall on the southern border, sparking speculation that the parties were not as close as the president had hoped.
Trump’s sign-off would be crucial to pushing a compromise on the issue through Congress.
And Graham sounded hopeful — even as conservative Republicans in the House criticized any plan that would lead to citizenship for Dreamers, illegal immigrants who came to the country as children and had been protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
“I’m hopeful it will lead to a breakthrough,” Graham said.
Along with Graham, the group included Arizona Republican Jeff Flake, who first announced the agreement, top Senate Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois, Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.).
“Senator Flake’s bipartisan group — the only bipartisan group that has been negotiating a DACA fix — has struck a deal,” Flake spokesman Jason Samuels confirmed. “The next step is taking it to the White House.”
Other lawmakers were far less sanguine on how much progress had been made.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) saidthat there’s no deal yet and that Trump sent lawmakers back to the “drawing board.”
Cotton declared that Democrats have not to given enough on border security, even though Republicans are willing to bend on the issue of childhood arrivals.
The Flake-Durbin-Graham group had also been discussing border security and other issues such as preferential treatment for family members of immigrants already in the United States.
Details were not immediately available on what the bargainers had signed off on.
Trump in September reversed the DACA protections put in place by then-President Barack Obama, saying Congress should address it.
With AP