There’s been little clarity so far from the incoming administration on precisely how Donald Trump plans to deal with DACA. | Getty Congress GOP warms to immigrants they tried to close government over Conservatives in Congress adopt a softer tone toward ‘Dreamers,’ immigrants brought here illegally as children.

Not even two years ago, the Republican-controlled Congress refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security unless it gutted President Barack Obama’s controversial immigration orders.

Now, Republicans want to help the very same group of immigrants they once targeted.


GOP lawmakers face a stark reality come Jan. 20: They’ll have a president in the White House who will actually unravel Obama’s executive actions on immigration that they in Congress had fought tooth-and-nail. And with that comes roughly 740,000 so-called Dreamers who put their faith in the Obama administration — as well as sensitive personal data — to get a reprieve from deportation and permits to work legally.

So instead of letting the benefits for those Dreamers lapse, Republicans are more willing to discuss how to ensure those young immigrants don’t fall through the cracks if Donald Trump follows through on his campaign pledge to revoke Obama’s executive actions.

“I think the administration should seriously look at a soft landing for them. I really do,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of the Judiciary Committee. “We’re not talking about amnesty. We’re not talking about granting citizenship. But they represent a class of people that I think are very different. The decision was not theirs, to me, here.”

Trump appears to be adopting a similar mind-set after his harsh campaign rhetoric.

“We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud,” Trump told Time magazine in an interview published this week. “They got brought here at a very young age, they’ve worked here, they’ve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they’re in never-never land because they don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Still, congressional Republicans are moving on their own, separate track.

In an interview Thursday, Tillis said he planned to huddle with fellow GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona about their legislation that would extend the key protections for immigrants who got work permits through the 2012 program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Graham and Flake, longtime Republican proponents of immigration reform, have been drafting a plan with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) that was unveiled Friday.

“The root cause of this illegal immigration was not the conscious action of the individuals we’re talking about,” Tillis said. “That’s why I think we could look at this and maybe identify a broader base of people who may be willing to support it.”

Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, the fifth-ranking member of GOP leadership, stressed that how Republicans end up dealing with DACA beneficiaries will depend on exactly how the Trump administration rolls back Obama’s executive actions.

But Blunt, too, took a sensitive approach to the Dreamers.

“There will be a lot of sympathy for kids who were brought here when they were kids,” Blunt said in an interview. “I just think it’s an easy thing to understand.”

The warmer tone from Republicans doesn't necessarily mean that Congress would enact the legislation from Durbin, Graham and Flake. And the House has taken a noticeably tougher tack on immigration in recent years.

The GOP antipathy against Obama’s unilateral immigration actions prompted a searing congressional fight over funding for DHS in early 2015. It came shortly after Obama proposed even more sweeping actions that could have affected more than 4 million immigrants here illegally.

Republicans went after Obama’s 2014 actions through government funding, and they expanded their attack to DACA, which was issued in 2012, at the behest of conservatives. But measures that stripped funding from those programs were repeatedly filibustered by Senate Democrats.

Make no mistake: Republicans still say Obama was clearly wrong to act on his own to grant the reprieve to the Dreamers. But they acknowledge the reality of 740,000 young immigrants who have submitted fingerprints, paid fees and are now attending school or working legally.

“I think that we should have something that balances the concerns of all the parties involved and make sure that we don’t pull the rug out from under people,” Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Thursday. “The transition team wants to make sure they get this right.”

Ryan deferred details to the House Judiciary Committee, which takes the lead on immigration matters. Senators working on the Dreamers plan haven’t yet spoken with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the Judiciary Committee in that chamber, but bill sponsors don't expect him to be supportive.

There’s been little clarity so far from the incoming administration on precisely how Trump plans to deal with DACA. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said some Senate Republicans spoke recently with Vice President-elect Mike Pence about the issue, and Pence deferred to an August speech that then-candidate Trump delivered in Phoenix, in which he laid out a 10-point plan on his approach to immigration.

“I think there’s always sympathy for people who are in a circumstance like that, through no fault of their own,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 3 Senate Republican. “But how that gets handled, how that gets treated, I think is an open question at this point.”

GOP officials actively working on a plan sound more bullish: “I think it will be a broader group [of Republicans] than just myself and Lindsey,” said Flake. Durbin said Friday that Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is one of the original Republican co-sponsors of the measure.

There are also some skittish feelings among the left, who are concerned that the broader population of 11 million immigrants here illegally would be left out if Congress focused solely on Dreamers, who are traditionally the most sympathetic group of undocumented immigrants.

“I do not intend to sacrifice one set of immigrants for another,” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said in a floor speech Thursday. “The reality is, Dreamers do not exist in a vacuum. They have parents. They have loved ones who have instilled values and work ethic and supported them to pursue an education and reach their full potential.”

Democrats on Capitol Hill have been deeply worried about the future of DACA under Trump. That was clear Thursday when Menendez pressed DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson in a private meeting with Senate Democrats to take some action that would protect the confidentiality of the Dreamers and their personal information before the end of the year, one person familiar with the meeting said.

The afternoon meeting in Durbin’s office was requested in part by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who also asked Johnson about detention centers for immigrant families, the person said. That was an issue Sanders highlighted during his presidential bid.

Those issues aside, key senators are now focusing on what they can do legislatively under a President Trump.

Durbin sounds optimistic he can get there. He says he has spoken to a number of GOP senators confidentially and while they may not be willing to say it publicly, the Republicans are willing to do something for the Dreamers.

"This is a very difficult group [of immigrants], once you meet them, to oppose," Durbin said Friday. "When this becomes personal, when they come to know these individuals, they change their positions some."

Rachael Bade contributed to this report.