WASHINGTON — For Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a passionate, liberal Democrat of Puerto Rican descent, there is no more important issue in the year-end budget showdown than protecting from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children — and who have only known America as their home.
The fate of these “Dreamers,” as they are commonly known, is one of the trickiest issues to resolve as the White House and Congress seek to avert a Christmas government shutdown that nobody says they want. House Democrats, and their leader, Nancy Pelosi, insist that the Dreamers be dealt with as part of a broader package that combines unfinished legislative business, including military spending, disaster aid and low-cost health care for children.
“You want a bipartisan budget and you want my vote? Then make it an American budget, one that includes a pathway to freedom for our Dreamers,” Gutierrez said. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer cares about Dreamers, too, but he isn’t playing hardball over immigration. At the top of his list of political concerns are the re-election bids next year of 10 Senate Democrats running in states that President Donald Trump won in 2016. Many of them want nothing to do with shutting down the government over immigration.
“I understand the passion on that. I’m not in favor of voting to shut down the government,” said Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, where Trump won almost 70 percent of the vote. “There are a lot of things I feel passionate about. But I’m not going to make 300 million people suffer because I can’t get the process working the way it should.”
House and Senate Democrats stand divided as leaders look to wrap up a sweeping spending deal by Dec. 22 and avoid a debilitating shutdown.
At issue is Trump’s decision to rescind Barack Obama’s executive order creating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which gave protected status to about 800,000 young immigrants in the country illegally. In scrapping the order, Trump gave Congress until March to come up with a legislative solution.
In September, the president told Pelosi and Schumer he would support the DREAM Act — Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors — which offers childhood immigrants a pathway to citizenship, as part of a broader immigration agreement.
But this fall, progress stalled. That led liberals such as Gutierrez to pressure leadership to use Democratic leverage — their votes are needed to pass legislation such as the budget or next year’s increase in the government borrowing — to ensure Trump lives up to his promise.
Republicans want to separate immigration from the year-end agenda, in part to avoid the appearance of getting muscled by Democrats like Pelosi and in part to try to get a better deal.
For her part, Pelosi won’t commit to helping Republicans keep the government open unless the DACA issue is dealt with.
