Government shutdown

Dems weigh government shutdown over Dreamers fight

Senate Democrats are debating whether to embrace brinkmanship in order to win relief for undocumented immigrants.

By SEUNG MIN KIM

Senate Democrats are weighing whether to use their ultimate leverage — the threat of a government shutdown in December — in their bid to protect hundreds of thousands of so-called Dreamers from possible deportation.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), a prospective 2020 presidential hopeful, raised the specter of a year-end showdown last week when she declared she wouldn’t vote for a spending bill that doesn’t help children of undocumented immigrants who came to the country as minors. Republicans will need Democratic votes — definitely in the Senate and almost certainly in the House, too — to pass legislation to keep the government funded.

Other Democrats told Politico they agreed with Harris.

“It’d be very difficult for me to support the end-of-the-year bill, whatever that may be, if DACA has not been taken care of,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.). “If we can’t take care of the Dreamers, I think it jeopardizes America’s standing on our principle strength: our values.”

But a number of other Democratic senators said they aren’t willing to go there — at least not yet.

“It is a topic which we are not raising at this point, because we hope we don’t even need to think about it,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a party leader on immigration. “But I tell you, everyone I’ve spoken to — starting with me — are very serious this has to be done this year.”

With influential GOP senators trying to craft an immigration plan that can get buy-in from both parties, many Senate Democrats want to leave space for the talks to unfold without resorting to hard-line tactics. But less than six weeks remain until government funding runs out Dec. 8, and it’s unclear how lawmakers will bridge the immigration rift by the end of the year, as top Democrats have promised.

Meanwhile, liberal Democrats in the House are vowing more vocally to withhold their votes for a must-pass spending package if lawmakers don’t come up with a congressional backstop for the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which President Donald Trump plans to phase out starting in March.

For now, most Senate Democrats are signaling caution, concerned that an uncompromising public stance could upend prospects of a bipartisan deal and reluctant to be seen as using Dreamers as bargaining chips.

Durbin and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are trying to round up support for their legislation that would let nearly 700,000 current DACA recipients and other young undocumented immigrants obtain legal status. Graham has been working on a parallel track with other Republicans to find border security and other restrictive immigration measures that lawmakers could then pair with legislation that would shield Dreamers.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) declined to say whether she would vote against a spending measure without a DACA fix, stressing: “I feel very strongly we need to get it done and we need to get it done now.”

“If we do nothing between now and the end of the year and try and jam it into the spending bill, it makes it less likely that it will be a bipartisan, lasting solution to the challenge of the Dreamers,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.). “But you should hear clearly the determination of many of us to get this fixed.”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, made similar comments: “There are a number of Republicans who’ve been out there, this is something we need to fix. I think we need to give that a chance to work and we should all try and act in good faith on that.”

Other contentious provisions are also in play during the year-end fight over annual funding levels and policy prescriptions. After backing off his insistence to secure funding for a border wall in September, Trump could again push to fund it — a nonstarter among Democrats and even some Republicans.

Congress could also use the spending package to continue payments to insurers for key Obamacare subsidies that Trump is scrapping, adding a contentious health care debate to the scramble on Capitol Hill. And lawmakers have yet to resolve the most basic element of a funding package: what the spending levels for federal agencies should be.

Democratic leaders promised earlier this year to try to attach a DACA fix to other bills, such as legislation reauthorizing a children’s health care program. But that program hasn’t been extended and few must-pass measures have actually been sent to the White House since Trump’s DACA announcement.

Some immigration advocates are urging lawmakers to include the Dream Act in a spending package, betting that GOP leaders can’t move a stand-alone measure because immigration is such a divisive issue for the party.

“We’re confident that, if Congress doesn’t address this crisis before December, which would be preferable, Democrats will make it clear that the Dream Act has to be included,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the advocacy group America’s Voice.

But congressional Republicans are focused on tax reform rather than immigration. And senior GOP lawmakers say they want to keep immigration separate from the year-end spending talks.

“I don’t believe it will, nor should it,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said on whether a DACA fix will be included in a December spending deal. “If you start cramming a bunch of other stuff into it, it’s gonna be harder to get the votes to pass it.”

Senate Democrats may well decide to embrace brinkmanship closer to December, particularly if progress lags on a DACA deal in Congress. But for now, most are keeping their powder dry.

“DACA is a really urgent priority for me,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). “I can’t say whether I would vote against a spending bill at this point, but I will do almost anything possible to assure that we approve of a DACA bill.”