The U.S. Senate rejected a series of bills to protect “Dreamer” immigrants on Thursday, leaving in limbo the future of 1.8 million young adults brought to the United States illegally as children.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate rejected a series of bills to protect “Dreamer” immigrants on Thursday, leaving in limbo the future of 1.8 million young adults brought to the United States illegally as children.
The Senate failed to get the 60 votes needed to move forward on four separate proposals, including one backed by President Donald Trump and a separate bipartisan bill that had been the most likely to win approval in the deeply divided Senate.
Trump helped defeat the bipartisan bill, which went down in a 54-45 vote, by labeling it just hours earlier as “a total catastrophe.”
He instead backed a Republican plan that would offer Dreamers a path to citizenship but also commit funding to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico and impose much tougher restrictions on legal immigration
In a blow to the Republican president, 14 senators from his own party opposed that bill, which failed by an emphatic 60-39 vote.
The Senate votes were the latest in a series of failures in Congress in recent years to pass a comprehensive immigration plan, and left lawmakers and immigration advocates searching for a way forward for the young Dreamers.
Democrats complained Trump’s uncompromising approach was sinking efforts to find a deal in Congress.
”This vote is proof that President Trump’s plan will never become law. If he would stop torpedoing bipartisan efforts, a good bill would pass,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said.
Trump escalates attack on bipartisan immigration plan
McConnell had set a deadline for the Senate to pass an immigration measure by the end of Thursday.
But Senator Mike Rounds, a leading Republican sponsor of the failed bipartisan proposal, said senators would keep trying.
“We’ll have a chance to regroup, and take a look at what we can do to take a bipartisan approach, modify some of those things where there are questions,” he said. “The issues are not going to go away. We’ve still got DACA kids that are going to have to be addressed. We’ve still got a border security system that the president says is a priority. We want to give him an opportunity to make that a success.”.
Frank Sharry, executive director of the immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, noted an overwhelming majority of Americans supported protections for Dreamers.
“It is noteworthy that the only vote to reach a supermajority of 60 votes was the resounding defeat of Trump’s racist and radical immigration plan,” he said.
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