This Issue: Led by Lindsey Graham, GOP Senators gather at the White House to discuss amnesty

Fri, Mar 6^th

A number of Republican Senators, including Gang of 8 alum Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and immigration-expansionist Thom Tillis of North Carolina met with Pres. Trump on Thursday to discuss an election year push to pass an amnesty for illegal aliens.

Sens. Graham and Tillis have been in the news as of late trying to convince their colleagues to get behind an agricultural amnesty bill that was passed by the House in December.

According to reports, the meeting was more of a session to discuss strategy should the Supreme Court strike down former Pres. Obama's executive DACA amnesty. The Senate attempted to pass a permanent DACA amnesty in February of 2018, but three competing proposals failed to reach the 60-vote threshold needed for the proposals to come to the Senate floor for debate.

Ahead of the Thursday meeting, Sen. Graham told Fox News, "Just to see, you know, where we are in terms of the DACA Supreme Court case, [there's a] pretty good chance that the president will win, being able to set aside the Obama-era DACA regulations and what's the play after that."

We know that Sen. Graham would like nothing more than to pass an amnesty for DACA recipients, and he likely doesn't want to stop there. He's the lead sponsor of the Dream Act, S. 874, that would add to DACA's 800,000 recipients by granting amnesty to an estimated 3 million illegal aliens. The farm amnesty that he's currently pushing would add another 1 million-plus to that number.

AMNESTY FOES & FANS WERE PRESENT

Other Senators reported at the White House meeting represented some mixed immigration positions: Ted Cruz of Texas, Kevin Cramer of South Dakota, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Martha McSally of Arizona, Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and David Perdue of Georgia.

Sens. Tillis and McSally would be open to joining Graham in supporting a mass amnesty, particularly if it came with the right tradeoffs. Sen. Tillis, along with Sen. Johnson, is looking for an expansion of guest worker programs. Sen. McSally would likely be willing to trade amnesty for increased border security in Arizona.

Thankfully, Sens. Cotton and Cruz were also in attendance. Both Senators have pushed back against the idea of granting a permanent amnesty to DACA recipients. Coincidently, Sen. Cotton slammed the Trump Administration's decision to increase the number of low-skilled H-2B visas for FY2020 via Twitter while the meeting was taking place.

WHITE HOUSE PLANS UNCLEAR

The White House continues to work on a proposal led by Jared Kushner that would replace the current green card system with one based on merit. That proposal was first unveiled about a year ago, but the White House has yet to turn it into legislation.

Pres. Trump has been vocal about his support of passing a permanent DACA amnesty, especially if the Supreme Court rules against the program. Shortly after he tried to terminate the DACA program in the fall of 2017, he pushed a four pillar plan that would end the visa lottery, end chain migration, fund border security, and grant amnesty to approximately 1.8 million DACA-eligible illegal aliens.

The Supreme Court isn't expected to rule on DACA until mid- to late-June, and reports after the meeting indicate that Pres. Trump would wait until then before making a decision. In the meantime, we've posted new faxes that you can send to your U.S. Senators on your Action Board in response to yesterday's meeting.

Chris Chmielenski
NumbersUSA Deputy Director

And then there were two...

Over the last week, we saw nearly every Democratic candidate drop out of the race for their Party's nomination with the exception of Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. Both candidates are pushing for a massive expansion of legal immigration. The only issue that really separates them is enforcement; Biden supports some enforcement, whereas Sanders has called for a moratorium on all interior enforcement and the decriminalizing of crossing the border illegally.

To review their specific statements and actions, click on the candidate's photo on the Presidential Candidate Grade Card.

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