The President will veto the Senate Democrats’ draft amnesty bills, a White House official told Axios.com.

The site reported late on February 13:

A senior administration official said Tuesday night that President Trump “will veto any bill that doesn’t advance his common-sense immigration reforms” — a hardening of the White House bargaining position as the Senate begins an epic debate … In discussing the White House’s strategic thinking, the administration official asserted confidence on immigration, saying Democrats who resist Trump’s approach will “be walking into a political suicide march.” The administration official said: “The White House has claimed the mainstream, middle ground on immigration.”

The veto threat, however, prompted a scornful response from an unnamed Democrat staffer, who said:

“We have claimed the middle ground, and the President has rejected it … He’s using Dreamers as leverage to achieve immigration policies that are broadly unpopular.”

The Democratic amnesty bills include Sen. Dick Durbin’s DREAM Act and Sen. Chris Coons’ joint amnesty with GOP Sen. John McCain.

The White House threat and Democratic response suggest that both parties are looking past the Senate’s stalled debate on immigration and amnesty to the critical November 2018 election.

A win by the GOP in 2018 will help deliver a 2019 immigration reform bill preferred by populists, but a Democratic win will produce a pro-amnesty bill in Spring 2019.

Many polls show that Trump’s 2016 immigration policies are very popular in the polling booth. His proposed amnesty for 1.8 million illegals gets high scores in business-funded polls but is unlikely to shift any votes into the GOP column in November.

Immigration polls which ask people to pick a priority or to decide which options are fair, show that voters in the polling booth put a high priority on helping their families and fellow nationals get decent jobs in a high-tech, high-immigration, low-wage economy. Those results are very different from the “Nation of Immigrants” polls which are funded by CEOs and progressives, and which pressure Americans to say they welcome migrants.

Read it all here.