Before it was even introduced, a Senate bill providing a legal path to citizenship for “DREAMers” and new border technology got the Twitter treatment from President Trump, The Hill reported today. DREAMers, named so after the DREAM Act, are undocumented immigrants brought into the United States as children.
“Any deal on DACA that does not include STRONG border security and the desperately needed WALL is a total waste of time,” Trump wrote in a tweet. “March 5th is rapidly approaching and the Dems seem not to care about DACA. Make a deal!”
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Christopher Coons (D-Del.) introduced the bill as a companion to the 2018 Uniting and Securing America Act (USA Act) introduced Jan. 26 in the House by Reps. Will Hurd (R-Texas) and Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) and has won more than 50 co-sponsors, including 27 Republicans, The Hill reported.
Both versions of the bill would up the use of the use of drones and other technology to improve “situational awareness and operational control of the border.” The Homeland Security Department would be required to send Congress a new border security strategy within a year, including the cost per mile for any physical or technological barriers to achieve border control.
Trump has proposed a path to citizenship for about 1.8 million immigrants in a trade for tens of billions in funding for a wall on the border with Mexico and other changes to legal immigration, The Washington Post reported. The USA Act would grant legal status to DREAMers who have been in the country since 2013, a larger number of people than the 1.8 million in the Trump proposal. Unlike Trump, legislators would not cut family-based migration, which the president refers to as chain migration, nor would they alter the diversity lottery program.
Read more at The Hill and The Washington Post.