Trump Administration Torches Immigration Plan Before Senate Vote

(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration blasted a bipartisan immigration proposal as an “egregious violation” of the president’s principles for a deal, hours before the Senate will weigh multiple plans aimed at addressing the fate of 1.8 million immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

A statement from the Homeland Security Department may make it harder for some Republican senators to back the plan from Senator Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, and Angus King, an independent from Maine.

The plan “would effectively make the United States a Sanctuary Nation where ignoring the rule of law is encouraged,” according to a Department of Homeland Security statement on Thursday.

The proposal, put together by a group of 25 senators, including eight Republicans, would give 1.8 million young immigrants, known as dreamers, a path to citizenship and provide $25 billion for border security. It doesn’t address President Donald Trump’s demand to curtail family sponsorships and eliminate a visa lottery system. Another proposal backed by Republican leaders would include those provisions.

Any of the measures being considered by the Senate would need to get 60 votes to advance and it’s unclear whether any of them can make that threshold in a chamber with 51 Republicans and 49 Democrats.

The Senate is expected to vote later Thursday on a bipartisan group’s deal on young undocumented immigrants and border security, among several plans on the issue. The measure, agreed by a group of senators after weeks of talks aimed at bringing Democrats and Republicans together on the issue, represented possibly the best chance of a bipartisan solution before a March 5 deadline.

Trump’s administration, in a statement early this morning, lit the amendment on fire.

The measure is an "egregious violation" of the president’s immigration framework, according to the Homeland Security statement. " Instead of being able to remove millions of undocumented immigrants, the proposal would -- in the words of the Trump administration -- "be the end of immigration enforcement in America and only serve to draw millions more illegal aliens with no way to remove them."

To contact the reporter on this story: Derek Wallbank in Washington at dwallbank@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Derek Wallbank at dwallbank@bloomberg.net, Joe Sobczyk, Justin Blum

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.