Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to put an end to any notion he would bend to Democratic demands to include amnesty for illegal immigrants in the must-pass year-end spending bill.
“We will not be doing [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] DACA this week,” he told Fox News on Tuesday.
McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan may have closed the door on amnesty being attached to the must-pass omnibus spending bill, but reports are that a backroom deal is in the works.
According to Politico, during a meeting with a dozen senators who support rewarding beneficiaries of DACA with permanent legal status White House Chief of Staff John Kelly “pledged that the administration will soon present a list of border security and other policy changes it wants as part of a broader deal.”
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a leading proponent of the so-called DREAM Act who attended the meeting said if DACA is not addressed this week, “we have another chance to finally come up with a bipartisan package of things to include” by mid-January.
Sen. Jeff Flake, the Arizona Republican who announced his retirement in October, echoed Durbin in a Tuesday evening tweet:
“Bipartisan #DACA bill will be on the Senate floor in January.
With the possibility of a bargain being struck, open border groups are certain to escalate the media and public relations campaign in an effort to garner attention and sympathy.
On Monday, billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer launched $100,000 nationwide digital ad campaign urging voters to call Congress and demand they pass the DREAM Act. He spent another $100,000 on a similar effort targeting wavering lawmakers in seven states, including Arizona and Virginia.
As FAIR’s Joe Gomez reported some illegal immigrants carried out plans to get arrested by holding sit-ins on Capitol Hill and not complying with law enforcement. There were hunger strikes in Alabama and demonstrations at district offices of members of the House and Senate.
In San Diego, the defenders of DACA established a “rapid response network” to respond after immigration enforcement actions and to verify what one report described as “rumored immigration enforcement activity.”
The special interests have made clear their goal – to gain passage of the DREAM Act, measure that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts would explode the federal budget deficit by $26 billion over the next decade.
With the December 22 deadline to fund the government looming and screaming protestors sitting in their offices, there is no guarantee the Congress will not crumble under the pressure of a well-financed and organized amnesty army.
