Trump tweet complicates House GOP efforts on immigration
By LISA MASCARO, Associated Press
Jun 21, 2018 11:43 AM CDT
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., meets with reporters before a House showdown on immigration, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, June 21, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)   (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House plunged into its long-awaited immigration debate Thursday with divided Republicans facing an uphill fight to muscle anything through the chamber. President Donald Trump seemed to undermine the effort with a tweet suggesting any measure the House approved would be doomed in the Senate anyway.

The fight — initially centered on helping young "Dreamer" immigrants stay in the country — has been swamped by heart-rending images of children in wire enclosures after being separated from their families at the border. Trump issued an executive order Wednesday aimed at reversing his own policy of taking immigrant children from their detained parents, but emotions remained high.

"I was welcomed here," a tearful Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., said during floor debate, describing her journey to the U.S. as a child from Guatemala. "I was not put in a freezing cell."

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., stopped short of predicting that a bill would pass.

"I don't know the answer to that question," he told reporters. "We're going to have some votes today and see."

In an embarrassing detour, the House used an early procedural vote to correct what Republicans called a drafting error — language providing $100 billion more than they'd planned to help build Trump's proposed border wall with Mexico. Instead of giving initial approval for $24.8 billion spread over the next five years, the legislation said it would open the door to $24.8 billion "for each" of the next five years.

The House planned votes on two broad GOP bills.

One was a conservative measure granting no pathway to citizenship for young "Dreamers" who arrived in the country illegally as children and curbing legal immigration and bolstering border security. It was certain to be defeated.

The other was a compromise between GOP moderates and the party's conservatives that included an opportunity for citizenship for the young immigrants. It provides $25 billion for Trump's wall, restrictions on legal immigration and language requiring the Homeland Security Department to keep migrant families together while they're being processed for illegal entry to the U.S.

Democrats oppose both measures as harsh.

"It is not a compromise," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters. "It may be a compromise with the devil, but it is not a compromise with the Democrats."

Even before votes began, Trump complicated GOP efforts to round up votes.

"What is the purpose of the House doing good immigration bills when you need 9 votes by Democrats in the Senate, and the Dems are only looking to Obstruct (which they feel is good for them in the Mid-Terms)," Trump wrote. "Republicans must get rid of the stupid Filibuster Rule-it is killing you!"

In the unlikely event that the House approves the GOP compromise, it seemed certain to go nowhere in the GOP-run Senate. Democrats there have enough votes to use procedural delays to kill it. Sixty votes are needed to end filibusters.

On Wednesday, Trump reversed himself and took executive action aimed at curbing the separation of families. His order seemed to stem some of the urgency for Congress to act.

But GOP leaders were eager to hold the votes anyway. The roll calls would let Republicans assert to voters that they tried addressing the immigration problem.

"Our members wanted to express themselves on an issue they care a great deal about," Ryan said.

Passage of the GOP compromise was always a long shot, but failure may now come at a steeper price. Republicans and Trump have raised expectations that, in control of Congress and the White House, they can fix the nation's long-standing immigration problems.

In an eleventh-hour effort to round up votes, Ryan took two dozen wavering lawmakers to the White House Wednesday so Trump could cajole them into supporting the bill. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen trekked to the Capitol to meet privately with groups of GOP lawmakers.

When the crisis of family separations erupted at the border, GOP leaders revised the bill to bolster a provision requiring parents and children to be held together in custody. It did so by eliminating the 20-day cap on holding minors and allowing indefinite detentions.

Even though Trump has acted unilaterally to stem the family separations, lawmakers still prefer a legislative fix. The administration is not ending its "zero tolerance" approach to border prosecutions. If the new policy is rejected by the courts, which the administration acknowledges is a possibility, the debate could move back to square one.

Senate Republicans, fearing Trump's action will not withstand a legal challenge and eager to go on record opposing the administration's policy, have unveiled their own legislation to keep detained immigrant families together.

In the House, moderate Republicans forced the immigration debate to the fore by threatening to use a rare procedure to demand a vote. Led by Curbelo and Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., many are from states with large populations of young "Dreamer" immigrants who now face deportation threats under Trump's decision to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. A federal court challenge has kept the DACA program running for now.

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Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.