Sen. Jeff Flake pushes to get DACA bill on Senate floor by end of month

PHOENIX — U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) pushed for his colleagues to secure a pathway toward citizenship for young immigrants during an impassioned Senate floor speech Monday.

In his speech, Flake stressed the importance of writing legislation that would allow Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients to obtain citizenship before their temporary protections under the Obama-era policy expire in March.

“Let’s get real about the time involved between now and when we have to fix this and not think that we can simply kick the can down the road and put in some temporary fix, some kind of bridge later that will protect these kids.

“Let’s have something that we can put on the Senate floor by the end of the month to have sufficient time to get this fixed by March 5,” the junior senator from Arizona said.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA, was a program enacted by former President Barack Obama in 2012. It granted temporary work permits to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

President Donald Trump put an end to the program in September, but left a six-month delay to allow Congress to decide whether it wants to write legislation to protect the so-called DREAMers.

While the children did come here illegally, Flake stressed that it was at the fault of their parents, not their own, and therefore should not be granted amnesty since it, by definition, is an unconditional pardon for a breach of law.

By suggesting that lawmakers are pursuing a bipartisan solution by proposing amnesty, Flake added, is “misleading” and “puts back the cause of actually trying to fix the situation.”

“In the proposal that we are drafting, this bipartisan group offers a pathway to citizenship only for a specific group of young immigrants.

Related: Arizona congressman calls DACA-border wall debate a leadership issue

“These are immigrants who are serving in the military, who are seeking education, who are holding good jobs. And they’ll be required to continue to do so before they can have a chance to earn citizenship,” he said.

However, Flake said any bipartisan proposal that would provide a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients would not include their parents.

“As for the parents of these young immigrants, nobody can deny the fact that they did break the law, and any bipartisan proposal on DACA cannot and will not reward them for this behavior.”

Trump said in a tweet last month that there will be no immigration deal without an agreement on the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

But Flake, who is expected to speak with Trump Tuesday on the issue, told his Senate colleagues that a compromise will be necessary in order to come to a conclusion and not everyone will get what they want.

“Deals like this, where you need 60 votes necessarily involve compromise. No party, no individual is going to get everything that they want,” he said.

“The White House won’t get everything they want, the Democrats in Congress won’t, and neither will the Republicans. This will be a compromise.”

Before his speech on Monday, Flake told reporters that he was not comfortable with how his fellow Republicans were talking into the meeting, saying they were making it “too broad” by pushing for other reforms.

However, the Arizona Republican agreed with the president that “additional infrastructure or barriers on the border” are needed, but said the amount of money that Congress provides for that infrastructure is subject to debate since it will have to come from the taxpayers.

“The president has made a request in the budget for about $1.6 billion for the coming year. I think that totals about 74 miles of fence between Texas and California. I think that that’s a good place to start,” Flake said.

“How much we authorize going forward will be very much in debate.”

This is not the first time Flake has pushed for a solution for the nearly 800,000 DACA recipients in the United States — including about 50,000 in Arizona.

In December, he said Congress should be focused on making a law, not a statement, when it comes to DACA and in October, he introduced a compromise bill that would have provided $1.6 billion in border funding and would have given conditional resident status to those recipients.

The Arizona Republican also voted for a GOP tax reform bill after he was promised a seat at the negotiating table by the White House to work toward a solution for DACA recipients.

Related

Small plane crashes near Chandler Municipal Airport with 1 on boardKatie Hobbs dodges debate question twice, says she’d rather meet voters face to face36-year-old man dies at hospital after detained for fight in southeast PhoenixAPS sets all-time electricity demand record as extreme heat strains Arizona power gridAmerican Airlines flights grounded briefly nationwide due to IT outageDave Ramsey says: For the people, things you leave behind