House 'Freedom Caucus' Republicans Hard-Line Immigration Stand Clashes With Trump Overture
This Freedom Caucus is probably going to the death of any compromise. Meanwhile, the refugees, DACA etc live in fear everyday.
House Republicans’ Hard-Line Immigration Stand Clashes With Trump Overture
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/us/politics/house-republicans-hard-line-immigration-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Thomas Kaplan and Sheryl Gay Stolberg
9-11 minutes
“This is the only bill that’s going to unify the conference,” said Representative Raúl R. Labrador, Republican of Idaho and a Freedom Caucus member. Erin Schaff for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Prominent House Republicans stepped forward on Wednesday with a vision of immigration policy that clashed fiercely with President Trump’s recent overtures of bipartisanship and highlighted how difficult it will be for Congress and the president to reach accord in the coming weeks.
The proposal, championed by the chairmen of the House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees, would crack down on illegal immigration and sharply reduce the number of legal immigrants to the United States. Coming one day after Mr. Trump held an extraordinary meeting in which he laid out the parameters for a bipartisan immigration deal, the House proposal highlighted the uncertainty surrounding negotiations that are supposed to coalesce before the government runs out of money on Jan. 19.
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Mr. Trump convened Tuesday’s session to address the fate of young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally by their parents and were eligible for work permits under an Obama-era initiative called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Mr. Trump rescinded DACA in September and gave Congress six months to come up with a replacement.
During Tuesday’s session, the president and lawmakers outlined four broad areas to be negotiated as part of a bipartisan immigration deal: shielding the young undocumented immigrants, known as Dreamers, from deportation; limiting family-based migration, in which one relative can sponsor another; ending the diversity visa lottery system; and improving border security.
But the House measure, put forth by a group that includes two committee chairmen — Judiciary’s Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia and Homeland Security’s Michael McCaul of Texas — was far more expansive.
It would require employers to use an Internet-based system, known as E-Verify, to confirm that they are hiring only legal workers; crack down on so-called sanctuary cities by denying them federal grants; allow for the detention of minors who are arrested at the border with their parents; and toughen sentences for criminals who have been deported and return illegally.
The measure would end the diversity visa lottery program, as Mr. Trump wants, and end family-based migration for all relatives other than spouses and minor children. It would offer three-year renewable work permits to DACA recipients, without offering them a path to citizenship.
The new House Republicans’ stand underscored the uncertainty about immigration. Mr. Trump’s positions vacillate daily.
And members of both parties are divided. Some Democrats are pressing for confrontation, while others seem to fear a political backlash. Some Republicans are searching for compromise against a conservative tide of anti-immigrant fervor.
Lorella Praeli, the director of immigration policy and campaigns at the American Civil Liberties Union, described the House legislation as a “collection of hard-line provisions designed to sabotage, rather than advance, the possibility of a bipartisan breakthrough.”......................
