Senators Reach Deal to Save Dreamers and Wall

 

The final agreement has wins for each side, including funding for a physical structure on the border. But the White House has yet to sign on.

A Daily Beast Exclusive

By Andrew Desiderio and Sam Stein

Congressional negotiators finalized an immigration deal on Thursday that would codify legal protections for undocumented minors while giving President Donald Trump some tangible victories of his own.

The deal, which was forged in the Senate, still faces major hurdles; chief among them a healthy skepticism from conservatives—including some officials in the White House—and a difficult path to passage in the House. But one lawmaker told The Daily Beast that there was a “growing sense of optimism” that negotiators had crafted an agreement that could, at a minimum, pass the Senate and put pressure on the House to act.

Congressional sources and lawmakers were universally cagey in discussing the specifics, but after The Daily Beast reported on the the basic contours of the agreement, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) confirmed the details that were initially described by aides and lobbyists privy to the negotiations.

The final deal will codify the legal protections for so-called DREAMers that Trump rescinded when he ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that began under his predecessor. The deal also seeks to undo another Trump decision: the termination of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for certain groups of immigrants, including Salvadorans, 200,000 of whom could face an end to their legal status in 2019.

In an interview Thursday afternoon, Flake confirmed those details to The Daily Beast. He said the DACA fix agreed to as part of the deal includes a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers. 

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