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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said that Democrats oppose any government funding bill that doesn’t include protections for Dreamers.

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Sen. Sanders said on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, “I and I think I speak for the vast majority of members of the Democratic caucus, we’re not going to desert these young people. This to my mind is one of the great moral crises of our time, as you have indicated, these are young people who were raised in the United States, they spent almost their whole lives here, they know no other country. And as a result of trump’s precipitous action in September, when he rescinded the executive order that Obama established, these young people, if we do not get our act together will be subjected to the possibility of deportation. This is unspeakable. It is unacceptable. When trump rescinded the executive order, he said to Congress, you guys have got to fix it. We need legislation, well, there have been some serious people, Democrats, and Republicans who have been working on a variety of ideas to fix it. And we cannot keep kicking this issue down the can. Trump started this crisis, we have got to resolve it, and we have got to stand with the dreamers of this country. And by the way, that’s not Bernie Sanders, that is the vast majority of the American people in poll after poll after poll. Protect the legal status of the dreamers, provide a path toward citizenship.”

Sanders is a member of Senate Democratic leadership, so if he believes that a majority of the Democratic caucus won’t support a government funding bill without protections for Dreamers, that is where Senate Democrats stand.

Republicans are going to have to work out their own issues with Trump and the far House Republican caucus that won’t support any provisions in the government funding bill. Democrats aren’t going to budge. They are daring Republicans to shut the government down instead of protecting Dreamers. Republicans are walking into a trap, and as Bernie Sanders made clear, Trump created this problem, and he will have to be the one to fix it.