A renegade effort to force the U.S. House of Representatives to vote on immigration reform is rekindling hopes for broader congressional action to address the status of hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants across America, senators of both political parties told VOA Thursday.
“I’m glad the House is moving,” North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis said. “I’m optimistic I have been, even when people said, ‘You’re crazy.’”
“I’m hopeful, I’m hopeful something happens on the House side that might shake [an immigration bill] free,” Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine said.
Tillis and Kaine are among a bipartisan group of senators advocating permanent legal status for undocumented immigrants brought to America as children.
President Donald Trump last year ordered an end to an Obama-era program that shielded so-called “Dreamers” from deportation, but federal courts have intervened to extend core elements of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
Despite bipartisan support for congressional action to safeguard DACA recipients, the Senate rejected three bills that would have done so earlier this year.
House Republican leaders, meanwhile, have not allowed any immigration votes to go forward. But that could change.
A group of moderate Republicans is attempting to bypass their leadership and force a floor vote through a rare procedural tactic known as a discharge petition.
As of Thursday, the petition was believed to be only a handful of signatures shy of the majority required to succeed, assuming all House Democrats sign on.
Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, described the discharge petition as “futile” because it lacks any guarantee that a bill will become law in the face of a threatened presidential veto.
The Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, called the House petition “a hopeful sign” but added he was “disappointed by the reaction of Speaker Ryan, who has discouraged any effort to bring this issue to the floor.”
Tillis, meanwhile, disputes any notion that immigration reform is a lost cause on Capitol Hill.
“We’ve had meetings among members in the Senate, multiple meetings [on a DACA fix],” the North Carolina Republican said. “I think there are reasonable people on both sides [Republicans and Democrats] that think we can find a compromise. And we need to.”
Tillis said a DACA solution paired with some U.S. border security enhancements demanded by President Trump remains the best formula for getting an immigration bill through Congress.
Kaine noted that Trump first endorsed, then rejected a bipartisan bill on DACA and border security earlier this year.
“We have a deal that we think is a good deal, and the president trashed it,” the Virginia Democrat said. “If he [Trump] would return to his original position, we could make something happen.”
The White House has said legal status for DACA recipients must be paired with a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and an overhaul of America’s legal immigration system, which Democrats do not support.
The Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, told VOA he has yet to see an immigration bill that can pass both houses of Congress and get Trump’s signature, making Senate action unlikely for the foreseeable future.
“I’m not aware of any consensus being achieved. If there was, it might be worth expending the effort [to debate it on the Senate floor]. But just to go through the same exercise without any results strike me as futile,” Cornyn said.
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