House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi issued a statement yesterday calling on Democrats to support a clean DREAM Act in negotiations with the White House. “The confusion of the last week has clouded the debate, but what is clear is that we must insist upon a clean DREAM Act, which is supported overwhelmingly by the American people, has bipartisan support in Congress and must be enacted in January,” the statement read. The confusion that Pelosi was alluding to concerns controversial statements the president made in reference to immigration from particular African and Latin America countries.
Democrats in Congress have been pushing for a bill that would provide legal status to children who were brought to this country illegally, but at a very young age through no fault of their own. Those individuals are sometimes referred to as DREAMers. DREAM is an acronym for the bill that was originally meant to provide those individuals that protection. That bill was originally proposed way back in 2001 and has repeatedly failed to pass in the Congress since.
The White House has been negotiating on a fix for DREAMers and DACA recipients. DACA is the program that President Obama instituted in 2012 by executive order when Congress failed again to pass the DREAM Act. It provides a subset of DREAMers temporary protection from deportation.
In exchange for a permanent fix to the DREAMer issues, President Trump has demanded funding for a wall along the southern border. The White House wants to see that funding included in a budget bill that needs to pass Congress before January 19 in order to keep the government open.
Democrats have been negotiating with the president, as well as Republicans on Capitol Hill on a solution. A bipartisan group of senators presented President Trump with a framework deal this week that grants DREAMers a pathway to citizenship and included funding for a border wall. That proposal was rejected.
Several Democrats have instead come out and called for a “clean” DREAMer bill, a bill that would provide permanent protections for DREAMers but would give nothing in return. Nancy Pelosi is the highest profile Democratic lawmaker to date to call for the clean bill, and may signal a hardening of stances on both sides of the negotiations.
Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, as well as Democratic Congressman and Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Keith Ellison, have also called on Congress this week to pass a clean DREAM Act. If an agreement can’t be reached by January 19, the government may be forced to shut down.