Senate leaders: time for immigration deal

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The Senate’s two top leaders put on a show of comradery Monday as their chamber launched its immigration debate, but also laid down markers underscoring how hard it will be to reach a deal that can move through Congress.

“We really do get along, despite what you read in the press,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., at a previously scheduled appearance alongside his counterpart, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., at the University of Louisville.

There was even ribbing when Schumer presented McConnell with a bottle of bourbon made in his home New York City borough of Brooklyn. McConnell, whose state knows a thing or two about bourbon, proclaimed, “There’s no such thing as Brooklyn bourbon.”

But just days after the two leaders brokered a bipartisan $400 billion budget agreement and helped shepherd it into law, both men made clear that an immigration agreement will be tough.

“The time for political posturing is behind us,” McConnell said later Monday on the Senate floor. He said while Democrats have called for “swift action” on immigration, “Now’s the time to back up the talk with the hard work of finding a solution.”

That, he pointedly said, would mean passage by the Senate and the House of a measure “which the president will sign.”

McConnell expressed his support for a wide-ranging proposal by President Donald Trump that the Senate is expected to vote on this week. It would pave a path to citizenship for up to 1.8 million young “Dreamer” immigrants in the U.S. illegally, a lure for Democrats that many Republicans oppose.

Trump also wants $25 billion for Trump’s border wall with Mexico and other security measures, as well as curbs on legal immigration – a must for many Republicans. Many Democrats consider some of the proposals, including limiting the relatives that legal immigrants can bring to the U.S., to be non-starters.

In his own remarks on the Senate floor, Schumer expressed opposition to such a sweeping approach.

“The only enemy here is overreach,” Schumer said. “Now is not the time nor the place to reform the entire legal immigration system. Rather, this is the time for a narrow bill” – which Democrats have said would help the Dreamers and provide some money for border security.