Two U.S. senators unveil bipartisan immigration plan

WASHINGTON - 6 February 2018: Two U.S. senators unveiled a bipartisan compromise on immigration on Monday that would protect young "Dreamer" immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children and would also boost security on the Mexican border.

President Donald Trump appeared to dismiss the plan immediately, saying any deal should provide funding for his long-promised Mexican border wall, and blaming Democrats for the impasse over immigration.

But it won important backing from Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who has waged a long battle in Congress to help Dreamers. A broader bill by Durbin and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham was rejected by the White House last month.

The proposal by John McCain, a Republican, and Chris Coons, a Democrat, is narrower in scope than a plan Trump put forward last month, which was resisted by both hard-line Republicans and Democrats.

It does not offer a sweeping overhaul of the immigration system and does not include funding for the wall, but calls for a way for Dreamers to avoid deportation and earn citizenship, while also bolstering border security.

The legislation would rely on a variety of tools, not just a physical wall, for securing the southern U.S. border.

Around 700,000 Dreamers stand to lose temporary protections that have allowed them to work and study in the United States without fear of deportation.

This latest initiative, like some others already floated, would protect the 700,000, while also allowing hundreds of thousands of additional young immigrants in similar situations to apply for temporary legal status that could lead to U.S. citizenship.

Most immigrated from Mexico and Central American countries.

"The bill ... does address the two most pressing problems we face: protecting DACA recipients and securing the border," Coons said in a joint statement with McCain.

The Dreamers were previously protected from deportation under Democratic former President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

DACA had been set to expire on March 5 after Trump canceled the program last fall and asked Congress to come up with a legislative solution by this date. But a federal court last month blocked the Trump administration from ending the program, and the administration's appeal is now pending before the Supreme Court.

The McCain-Coons plan, which mirrors similar bipartisan legislation introduced in the House of Representatives last month, was expected to be formally introduced later on Monday.

Lawmakers have been struggling to reach a deal on an immigration bill, despite broad public support for helping Dreamers.

The last major legislative push, in 2013-14, failed when House Republicans refused to consider a broad, bipartisan measure passed by the Senate.

During a conference call with reporters, Coons said he was alarmed to hear some senators now talking about simply putting off long-term decisions about Dreamers for a year and making some "modest investments" in additional border security.

Coons, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that oversees immigration policy along with other panels, also said that despite Trump's insistence on building a wall, border law enforcement officials in a recent briefing for senators did not make such a request.

"It was clear they are not embracing the notion of a single concrete wall from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific" Ocean, Coons said. Instead, he said administration officials spoke of the need to repair and upgrade existing fencing, build additional barriers and make other improvements.

The McCain-Coons bill comes as the Republican-controlled Congress seeks to avert a federal government shutdown when current funding expires on Thursday.

U.S. lawmakers have so far failed to pass a long-term budget deal, instead relying on a series of short-term fixes that have been increasingly entangled with wrangling over immigration. Failure to agree on an immigration fix led to a three-day shutdown of government agencies last month.

Trump has said that any immigration deal must include billions of dollars to build the border wall. At the same time he has given mixed messages about the future of the hundreds of thousands of DACA participants.

"Any deal on DACA that does not include STRONG border security and the desperately needed WALL is a total waste of time. March 5th is rapidly approaching and the Dems seem not to care about DACA. Make a deal!" the president said in a tweet on Monday.

While the McCain-Coons plan does not include funding for the border wall, Coons said on Monday he thought there was still enough support among both Democrats and Republicans to pass it, noting that the House bill has attracted 27 Republican and another 27 Democratic lawmakers co-sponsoring it.

Trump could veto legislation that he deemed unacceptable if it were passed by both chambers of Congress. That would likely ignite a congressional battle over whether to overturn his veto.