The latest on DACA: Sen. Jeff Flake fails to get Senate to pass 3-year extension

Dan Nowicki
The Republic | azcentral.com
Sen. Jeff Flake's efforts to extend the DACA program for another three years, while also funding additional border security for three years, failed Tuesday.

Sen. Jeff Flake on Tuesday tried but failed to get the Senate to pass his stopgap plan to legislatively extend for three years the imperiled Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, in exchange for three years of additional funding for border security.

Flake, Arizona's junior Republican senator, has vowed to press for passage of his "three-for-three" DACA bill at least weekly until his colleagues agree to a deal that would provide a permanent solution for young undocumented immigrants known as dreamers.

"Now I'm the first to admit that this is far from a perfect solution, but it does provide a temporary fix to these crucial problems," Flake said on the Senate floor before asking his fellow senators to immediately pass his bill by unanimous consent.

RELATED: Sen. Jeff Flake offers 'three for three' DACA, border security compromise

"It begins the process of improving border security and it ensures DACA recipients will not lose protections and be left to face potential deportation. ... To put it as bluntly as possible, this is simply not something that we can ignore any longer," he said.

No legislative solution yet

President Donald Trump had wanted to end DACA on Monday. But legal challenges forcing the government to continue the program have complicated his effort by taking pressure off Congress to reach a legislative solution to protect the  young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and, under the current immigration system, have no clear way of legalizing their status on their own. 

In 2012, then-President Barack Obama went around Congress via executive action to create the DACA program, which shields the young immigrants from deportation and provides them with work permits.

(The young immigrants became known as "dreamers" after the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors — or Dream — Act that never became law despite years of trying by lawmakers, prompting Obama to take action on his own.) 

The Senate on Feb. 15 considered but blocked Trump's hard-line immigration package, which would have provided a path to citizenship for 1.8 million dreamers, including about 690,000 DACA current participants. But Trump also insisted on major border-security funding and other changes to the overall immigration system that have further complicated the already-difficult task of passing legalization legislation for dreamers. The bill he backed got only 39 votes in the Senate, far fewer than the 60 needed to clear a chamber procedural hurdle.

RELATED: What's next for 'Dreamers' after Senate immigration bills fail?

Two more moderate alternative plans also failed to meet the Senate's 60-vote threshold.

Flake's bipartisan three-year DACA extension, which would provide $7.6 billion in border-security money, is co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota.

"We may not be able to deliver a permanent solution to these problems but we cannot completely abdicate the responsibility of Congress to solve them," Flake said Tuesday on the floor. "There are many people whose lives and well-being depend on our ability to deliver meaningful results here."

Lankford scuttles Flake bill

For Flake's tactic to work, none of his fellow 99 senators could object to his motion. Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, quickly doomed the measure when he objected on the grounds that he believes Congress should continue working on a permanent solution for the "dreamers."

"If Congress does a temporary patch once, it'll do it 20 times again," Lankford said. "My concern is for the DACA kids that are in my state in Oklahoma, the 7,500 of those. They are looking for an actual solution. They want a sense of permanence. Their status has been in limbo since 2012. The question that we need to resolve is: Can we actually resolve this for them?"

Lankford added that "a couple of federal courts have pushed back on the administration, (and) have bought Congress a little more time to be able to help resolve this issue."

Lankford asked Flake to modify his request so that the Senate could resume consideration of the previously failed legislation backed by Trump.

Flake agreed that a permanent solution is preferable, but said the Trump-blessed plan "is for all intents and purposes, comprehensive immigration reform, which would make changes to the legal immigration structure moving ahead.

"That's simply too much to bite off at this time," Flake said. "As much as I don't like to do it, I'm offering something that is stopgap. But at least it's three years. At least it will give those affected three years, and for us in Congress, some time to actually come to a solution. What we cannot do is force these kids through more uncertainty."

After Flake objected to Lankford's request to change his request, Lankford objected to Flake's original request, dashing Flake's hopes of immediate passage of his bill.

Nowicki is The Republic's national political reporter. Follow him on Twitter, @dannowicki.

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