WASHINGTON -- The Senate will open up a rare, open-ended debate on immigration and the fate of the "Dreamer" aliens today.
But President Donald Trump is a crucial and, at times, complicating player. His day-to-day turnabouts on the issues have confounded Democrats and Republicans and led some to urge the White House to minimize his role in the debate for fear he'll say something that undermines the effort.
Yet his support is likely to be vital. No Senate deal is likely to see the light of day in the more conservative House without the president's blessing and promise to sell a compromise to his base.
"The Tuesday Trump versus the Thursday Trump, after the base gets to him," is how Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a proponent of compromise, described the president and the effect conservative voters and his hard-right advisers have on him. "I don't know how far he'll go, but I do think he'd like to fix it."
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., scheduled an initial procedural vote for this evening to commence debate. It is expected to succeed easily, and then the Senate will spend days or weeks -- no one knows how long -- sorting through proposals.
Democrats and some Republicans say they want to help the Dreamers, young aliens who have lived in the U.S. illegally since they were children and have only temporarily been protected from deportation by a President Barack Obama-era program. The term "Dreamer" is based on the never-passed DREAM Act, which would have given protections similar to those provided by that program.
Trump has said he wants to aid them and has even proposed a path to citizenship for 1.8 million, but in exchange he wants $25 billion for his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall and significant curbs to legal immigration.
McConnell agreed to the open-ended debate, a Senate rarity in recent years, after Democrats forced a government shutdown last month and would supply enough votes to reopen agencies with a promise of a debate and votes on immigration. They had initially demanded a deal to help Dreamers, not a simple promise of votes.
To prevail, any plan will need 60 votes, meaning substantial support from both parties. Republicans control the chamber 51-49, but Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has been home for weeks battling brain cancer.
It's unclear who will offer what.
Some version of Trump's plan and a bipartisan proposal to give Dreamers a chance at citizenship -- with no border security money or legal immigration restrictions -- seem likely to surface.
A rejection of Trump's plan, which may not even attract all GOP votes, would be a black eye for the White House. For Democrats, perhaps its most radioactive proposal is barring legal immigrants from sponsoring their parents or siblings to live in the U.S.
Votes are also possible on a compromise by a small bipartisan group led by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. It would provide possible citizenship for hundreds of thousands of Dreamers, $2.7 billion for border security and some changes in legal immigration rules. McCain and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., would offer legal status but not necessarily citizenship and require tougher border security without promising wall money.
Trump has rejected both proposals.
Some senators have discussed a bare-bones plan to protect Dreamers for a year in exchange for a year's worth of security money. Flake has said he's working on a three-year version of that.
"I still think that if we put a good bill to the president, that has the support of 65, 70 members of the Senate, that the president will accept it and the House will like it as well," Flake told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday.
Underscoring how hard it's been for lawmakers to find an immigration compromise, around two dozen moderates from both parties have met for weeks to seek common ground. So have the No. 2 Democratic and GOP House and Senate leaders. Neither group has come forward with a deal.
Last September Trump said he was ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which lets Dreamers temporarily live and work in the U.S.
A Section on 02/12/2018