The passage of President Donald Trump’s deadline for Congress to arrive at a deal for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is a clear signal that any legislative action on immigration is unlikely before November’s midterm elections, The Hill reported on Tuesday.
Trump’s deadline lost most, if not all, of its meaning after a California court blocked his order to end DACA, and the Supreme Court last week refused the administration’s request to skip the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California and go directly to the high court, according to NPR.
Four separate bills dealing with Dreamers, immigrants who arrived in the country illegally as minors, failed to reach the 60-vote threshold in the Senate in February, and Trump has blamed Democrats for the impasse, as in this tweet.
In addition, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that it is "pathetic" that Congress had failed to legislate on DACA after Trump provided them a deadline and a path.
But California Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar shot back, pointing out that the president artificially created the crisis six months ago by declaring March 5 as the end of DACA, according to The Hill.
Aguilera also stressed that "the president is the one who issued veto threats to bipartisan efforts," referring particularly to a deal between Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Democrat Dick Durbin that Trump rejected.
The future of the DACA debate remains uncertain. On the one hand, the court injunction has forced the Trump administration to continue granting renewals to existing DACA recipients whose two-year permits expire.
However, the injunction also has left younger Dreamers who would have aged into DACA unprotected, and existing beneficiaries could see gaps in their coverage as the Department of Homeland Security adjudicates their applications, The Hill reported.