Republican leaders in Congress have ruled out taking action on Daca before the year’s end, and it remains to be seen whether Democrats will force a vote

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Indira Marquez Robles will turn 18 on Friday. But more than a party or presents, the Houston teen wants Congress to pass the Dream Act, a bipartisan plan that would protect young, undocumented immigrants like herself from deportation.

What is Daca and who are the Dreamers? Read more

“The deadline for deciding what to do on Daca is on my birthday,” Marquez Robles said. “So it could be the best birthday present ever or the biggest blow to the chest I could imagine.”

The high school senior is part of a groundswell of liberal activists demanding that Congress enact protections for the nearly 700,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children, known as Dreamers, before adjourning for the year.

But on Capitol Hill, lawmakers are now all but certain to leave Washington for the holidays without resolving the fate of the young immigrants.

It remains to be seen whether Democrats, who vowed action before the holidays, are prepared to force a vote on the issue this week as Congress moves toward passing a spending bill to avert a government shutdown. Republican leaders in Congress have ruled out taking action before the year’s end.

“That’s a matter to be discussed next year,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, told Fox News on Tuesday when asked about the status of Dreamers.

“The president has given us until March to address that issue. We have plenty of time to do that.”

Profile Who are the Dreamers? Show Hide Dreamers are young immigrants who would qualify for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (Daca) program, enacted under Barack Obama in 2012. Most people in the program entered the US as children and have lived in the US for years “undocumented”. Daca gave them temporary protection from deportation and work permits. Daca was only available to people younger than 31 on 15 June 2012, who arrived in the US before turning 16 and lived there continuously since June 2007. Most Dreamers are from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and the largest numbers live in California, Texas, Florida and New York. Donald Trump cancelled the program in September but has also said repeatedly he wants Congress to develop a program to “help” the population.

On Wednesday, McConnell pledged to hold a vote on the status of Dreamers in January – pending a compromise from a bipartisan working group in the Senate.



In September, Donald Trump plunged Dreamers into uncertainty by announcing that he was rescinding Daca, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, implemented by Barack Obama in 2012. The policy paved the way for hundreds of thousands of Dreamers to come out of the shadows to study and work legally in the US.

Trump placed their fate squarely in the hands of Congress, giving lawmakers until 5 March 2018 to find a legislative solution.

Democrats have long insisted Congress must act by the end of the year, setting the stage for a possible government shutdown over Dreamers.

The House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, appeared to stand by that promise, urging her caucus on Wednesday to vote against a spending bill if it didn’t include, among other Democratic priorities, support for the Dream Act, a bipartisan bill that was first introduced in 2001 and would provide a pathway to citizenship for roughly 1.2 million immigrants.

“House and Senate Democratic Leadership has continued to insist on parity in the CAPS, which we insist should include funding for opioids, veterans, pensions, NIH, and support for the DREAM Act,” she wrote in a letter to colleagues. “Unless we see a respect for our values and priorities, we continue to urge a strong NO on the Continuing Resolution.”

A handful of Democrats in both chambers have said publicly they will withhold their votes on any spending bill that does not also address protections for Dreamers. But whether the party is willing to risk the political blowback of a government shutdown is unclear.

As lawmakers approach a deadline of midnight on Friday to pass a bill that would keep the US government open, immigration advocates are increasingly concerned by what they view as equivocal statements from top Democratic leaders.

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Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, would not explicitly say if he would oppose a short-term government funding bill that did not include protections for Dreamers.

“I’m hopeful that we won’t get to that,” Schumer told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, while noting negotiators were nearing a resolution on a spending bill and he remained “hopeful” that it would include both the Dream Act and border security measures.



Trump and Republicans have demanded that any Daca fix must be paired with tougher restrictions along the US-Mexico border.

A bipartisan group of senators has been seeking a compromise to enact legal protections for Dreamers. The group met with the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, on Tuesday and is expected to unveil a proposal this week.

But the Arizona senator Jeff Flake, a Republican member of the working group and longtime proponent of immigration reform, said the bill would not receive a vote until next month.

“Bipartisan #DACA bill will be on the Senate floor in January.” Flake tweeted on Wednedsay.



Democrats on Capitol Hill, who overwhelmingly support Dream Act-style legislation, are divided over how to meet the urgency of young, undocumented immigrants.

“If Republicans refuse to do the right thing and protect Dreamers in the upcoming long-term spending bill, then they are going to cause the government to shut down,” Kirsten Gillibrand, a senator from New York, said at a rally across the street from the US Capitol on Tuesday.



Senator Kamala Harris of California, agreed and accused lawmakers of inflicting “trauma” on the young immigrants by allowing their fate to hang in the balance without a resolution.

“Each day matters,” Harris said. “And for that reason we must get this done and we must get it done before the end of this year. No January. No February. No March. Now.”

Harris cited statistics from the left-leaning Center for American Progress showing that with each passing day, roughly 122 Daca recipients lose their protections, including the authorization to work legally in the US.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dreamers rally in front of the US Capitol in Washington. Photograph: Yuri Gripas/Reuters

As the clock winds down, hundreds of activists have descended upon Washington from dozens of states across the country as part of efforts to urge Congress to act. They held peaceful sit-ins in the offices of congressional lawmakers, and some were arrested in an escalation of their tactics. More protests and marches are expected throughout the coming days.

While some House and Senate Democrats joined the advocates, a growing number of Democrats, namely those facing re-election next year in states won by Trump, are less emphatic.

Those Democrats are less comfortable with the optics of shutting down the government – thus forcing federal agencies to cease their services and workers to remain at home – over the issue of immigration. Polls showing that the majority of Americans oppose a shutdown, and would distribute blame evenly among both parties, have compounded their concerns.

Immigration reform has loomed over the US for decades, often acting as one of the most polarizing and politically vexing issues before Congress.

In 2013, a bipartisan bill to overhaul the US immigration system passed the Senate but died in the House amid stiff opposition from conservatives. A separate version of the Dream Act had failed to advance in the Senate in 2010, prompting Obama to take executive action in 2012.

While polling shows support for Dreamers among a majority of Americans, conservative hardliners have been emboldened by Trump’s victory in last year’s election on a decidedly anti-immigrant platform.

Immigration advocates believe this is their “do-or-die” moment.

Kicking the issue into 2018 would amplify an already complex issue against the backdrop of an election year, they argue, when there might be even less appetite among lawmakers to take political risks. They have also seen how standalone immigration bills have fared in the past.

“We’re the closest we’ve ever been to passing the Dream Act,” said Karen Caudillo, a university student from Orlando, Florida, and a Daca recipient. “If we don’t do it now we just know that next month lawmakers will start worrying about 2018 and it will be impossible to pass. Then the next thing you know, we’re being deported.”

Caudillo has spent the past two weeks in Washington at rallies and protests on Capitol Hill to urge lawmakers to demand Congress pass the Dream Act before the end of the year.



On Tuesday, she joined activists at a sit-in inside the office of Senator Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico who supports the Dream Act. She said he was gracious and listened to their stories but ultimately did not commit to withholding his vote on the spending bill.

“What we tried to explain is that we don’t want a government shutdown either,” Caudillo said. “But if enough people refuse to go home without a deal we can create enough pressure on Republicans so that they have to do something.”

Ben Wikler, the Washington director of MoveOn.org, a progressive advocacy group, said time and patience were running short.

“Any lawmaker, Democrat or Republican, who votes for a deal to fund the deportation of Dreamers rather than protecting them will be scorched by a grassroots uprising hot enough to boil snow,” Wikler said in a call with immigration and progressive activists.

“The Dreamer deadline is December. No extensions,” he added.

For Marquez Robles, who expects to spend her 18th birthday anxiously checking her phone in between classes for updates from Capitol Hill, the Dream Act’s passage is urgent. Her protected status expires in less than 100 days.

Yet despite the uncertainty, Marquez Robles maintains an unshakable confidence in the American Dream, which for her means going to college and becoming an immigration lawyer in the country where she has lived since she was six months old.

“Sometimes I get overwhelmed but I am trying not to dwell on these negative feelings,” she said. “I always think that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel.”