McSally: Democrats should ‘get over’ passing clean Dream Act
Jan 17, 2018, 4:51 AM
.@RepMcSally: "There is no such thing as doing a clean DREAM Act. The Democrats need to get over it, it's not happening." #OutnumberedOT pic.twitter.com/bUYxMsSY9k
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 15, 2018
PHOENIX — U.S. Rep. Martha McSally has fully backed herself behind President Donald Trump’s immigration priorities in her run for U.S. Senate.
In an interview with Fox News on Monday, McSally encouraged her fellow legislators in the Democratic Party to give up on the possibility of passing a “clean” Dream Act for young immigrants.
“There’s no such thing as doing a clean Dream Act. The Democrats need to get over it — it’s not happening,” McSally said in the interview.
“We in our bill have come up with the president’s priorities, the American people’s priorities, and that should be the starting point for these negotiations,” she added.
Those priorities include addressing border security, “something on DACA,” ending chain migration and ending the visa lottery, McSally said.
“These are reasonable requests for us to move forward.”
The fight to grant citizenship for immigrants with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status has been a long and, at times, vicious one.
Democrats have argued for the passage of a “clean” Dream Act — a law that would grant conditional and permanent residency to young immigrants and would not include any other type of border security funding.
Sen. Jeff Flake, a fellow Republican, and a group of bipartisan lawmakers announced last week they had reached a deal on DACA, but it was quickly shot down by the White House.
The program was an Obama-era policy that granted temporary work permits to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced an end to DACA in September, calling it an an “unconstitutional exercise of authority by the executive branch.”
However, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup ruled earlier this month that the program must remain in place while litigation over Trump’s decision unfolds.
Related: Arizonans can once again apply for DACA status after judge’s ruling
Trump tweeted on Sunday that the program is “probably dead,” blaming Democrats for not doing enough to help those immigrants.
Lawmakers hope to agree on an immigration plan by Jan. 19, when the government could shut down.
