White House Issues Veto Threat To Bipartisan Immigration Plan

Updated Feb. 15 at 1:00 p.m. ET

Prospects for a Senate immigration deal are disintegrating following a White House threat to veto a bipartisan solution.

The veto threat comes after senators spent the past several days scrambling to rally support for a compromise to pair a 12-year path to citizenship for all DACA eligible immigrants with $25 billion in border security spending and limits on which family members the beneficiaries can sponsor for citizenship. The White House has been hostile to the proposal for days and the official statement all but ensures that most Republicans will abandon the effort.

"The Administration continues to insist on a safe, modern, and legal immigration system for the benefit of the American people," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. "If the President were presented with an enrolled bill that includes the Amendment, his advisors would recommend that he veto it."

The Senate is expected to vote later today on several proposals, none of which appear to have the votes to pass. The crumbling support across the board makes it increasingly likely that Congress will fail to pass an immigration solution before March 5 when the White House plans to revoke the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Court orders by a pair of federal judges in New York and California have blocked the administration's plans to end the DACA program which means the government is required to continue processing renewal requests from people already enrolled in the program.

Senators frustrated

The veto threat and other White House intervention frustrated Democrats and those Republicans who helped craft the bipartisan bill. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he was frustrated that the White House was relying heavily on hard-line immigration advisers.

"You've got the most extreme characters in town running the show," Graham told reporters. "What do you expect?"

Trump already threw his support behind a GOP-written bill sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to give 1.8 million immigrants in the country illegally who arrived as children a chance to apply for citizenship. That would be in exchange for limits to legal immigration through ending the visa lottery system and cutting family-based immigration policies, which the president and many conservatives refer to as "chain migration."

Trump said he would reject any bill that does not meet his four pillars: "A lasting solution on DACA, ending chain migration, cancelling the visa lottery, and securing the border through building the wall and closing legal loopholes."

"I am asking all senators, in both parties, to support the Grassley bill and to oppose any legislation that fails to fulfill these four pillars," Trump said in a statement. "That includes opposing any short-term 'Band-Aid' approach."

Path to 60 votes unclear

The bipartisan legislation was released Wednesday night with the support of at least 16 Senators — well short of the 60 needed for it to pass.

The plan was written by a small bipartisan group including Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Joe Manchin, D-W.Va and Graham.

The bill's main sponsor, Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said the legislation is a moderate solution but he does not think the bill can pass. Rounds told NPR's Steve Inskeep he doesn't think the Grassley bill, known as the chairman's mark, can succeed either.

"I don't think the chairman's mark will receive enough votes from both sides of the aisle to pass," Rounds said. "I think ours, if it had been offered last probably would have garnered more than 60 votes to move forward to be a vehicle to actually get something done."

Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., a close ally of President Trump, told reporters he does not expect the White House to budge and support anything less.

"If you do something much narrower than what we've got proposed, you'll be right back here in four or five years doing the same thing again with another wave," Perdue said. "If you don't break the chain migration issue, you're going to be back here because you're reinstating another wave of parents who will smuggle their kids in illegally."

Many Democrats and some Republicans say they want to focus on granting rights to those immigrants who are in the country illegally after being brought in as children. Roughly 700,000 of those immigrants stand to lose legal protections starting on March 5, the date that the White House has established for the beginning of the sunset on the DACA program, established by President Obama.

Senate leaders have set up a process to allow votes on a variety of proposals, including the Grassley bill. They would vote on the emerging bipartisan bill and a second narrow bill written by Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and John McCain, R-Ariz., to address the DACA population. Coons said Wednesday that his proposal is a starting point that can be adapted by adding specific amendments that have the support of a majority of Senators.

"If we can make more progress, if we can attract more bipartisan support through amendments or revisions, I welcome that," Coons said on the Senate floor. "We can find a way forward together."

But leaders have been unable to reach an agreement to start that debate or hold votes while senators are still at odds of which bills they support.

Some in Congress privately fear that Trump's emphatic support for the Grassley bill could scare off Republicans who might otherwise support a bipartisan compromise. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., says he will only bring up legislation that has Trump's full support. Republican senators are unlikely to take a political risk in voting for a bipartisan bill if they believe that it is destined for failure in the House.

A 2013 bill to massively overhaul the immigration system passed the Senate overwhelmingly, but was never taken up by the GOP-controlled House in the face of fierce opposition from conservative hard-liners.

Tensions were high throughout the day on Wednesday as senators rallied around Trump's demands. A visibly frustrated Grassley vented to reporters that Democrats needed to drop their opposition to the family-related portions of the bill and embrace the only offer Trump has embraced.

"The Democrats have been pleading for months and months and months for justice on this," Grassley said. "Now you've got a compassionate president who has gone way beyond what they ever thought he would do. Why would they turn it down?"

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.