WASHINGTON -- Presidential senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner tried to win support for a White House immigration plan Tuesday, but Republican senators raised questions.
After Kushner and others described the proposal at a Capitol Hill lunch with GOP lawmakers, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters that White House officials seemed "well on their way" to winning consensus for a plan that would unite Republicans on the contentious issue. But he added, "whether it will or not, I don't know."
President Donald Trump is to unveil the plan today.
Democrats want an easing of restrictions that have prevented many people from obtaining citizenship, including for hundreds of thousands of young people brought to the U.S. as children who are now in the country illegally. They've been allowed to temporarily live and work in the U.S. under President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which Trump has tried to terminate.
Kushner got a positive reception for his proposal last week from about a dozen of the Senate's more conservative Republicans. It features a bolstering of security measures, such as improved screening at southwest border ports of entry, and an increased preference for immigrants with strong job skills over relatives of migrants already in the U.S.
Graham said that while Kushner's plan focuses on people with high-end job skills, "we need workers across the board."
Moderate Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked Kushner about protections for deferred-action program recipients but received no specific answer, Republicans said.
One Republican official briefed on Tuesday's meeting said Kushner provided few details and said senators did not seem overly impressed with the plan. Another said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., did not offer his views of the proposal. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the private session.
Kushner did not include protections for the deferred-action program in his proposal. Republicans say the plan is designed to give their party a starting point for talks and a stance they can carry into next year's elections.
"I don't think it's designed to get Democratic support as much as it is to unify the Republican Party around border security, a negotiating position," Graham said.
Graham rolled out his own proposal Wednesday to address a recent flood of migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. He said the proposal would make the U.S. a less attractive destination.
Under the plan, migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. would have to make their claims at processing centers in places such as Central American countries and Mexico, not in the U.S.
The proposed legislation would allow the U.S. to detain migrant families together for up to 100 days, compared with the current 20-day limit, add 500 new immigration judges to reduce a lengthy backlog, and let the U.S. deport unaccompanied minors from Central America to their home countries, as can currently be done for young people from Canada and Mexico.
Separately, Trump on Wednesday spoke at an annual event that honors slain law enforcement officers, highlighting the case of a Northern California police corporal who authorities say was killed by a man in the U.S. illegally. Trump called on Congress to toughen immigration laws.
"Not one more life should be lost because our lawmakers fail to secure our borders," Trump said in remarks at the National Peace Officers' Memorial Service on Capitol Hill.
The president contended that the United States has "a corrupt and broken system that can be changed in 20 minutes" and called for several policy changes, as well as construction of his long-promised wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump highlighted the slaying of Cpl. Ronil Singh of the Newman, Calif., Police Department during a traffic stop in December. The man charged in the case is a migrant who authorities say crossed into Arizona from Mexico in the past few years and had been working as a farm laborer in California's Central Valley.
Information for this article was contributed by Alan Fram, Lisa Mascaro, Matthew Daly and Jill Colvin of The Associated Press; and by John Wagner, Mark Berman and Rachael Bade of The Washington Post.
A Section on 05/16/2019