A Wednesday meeting of Republicans and Democrats to discuss "Dreamer" legislation and border security was hailed as "good" and "productive" — but few details were revealed, The Hill reported.
Specific border enforcement measures were talked about at the gathering in House Speaker Paul Ryan's office, but the session was more like a "listening session," where both sides laying out their vision of what they would deem acceptable enhanced border enforcement, sources told The Hill.
The meeting followed another one between lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and President Donald Trump at the White House in which Trump said he would not seek to link border wall funding to legislative action on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, The Hill reported.
He also pushed lawmakers to move quickly on replacing the executive initiative with a legislative solution.
According to The Hill, Ryan called Wednesday's meeting at the request of Democrats after Trump canceled DACA, which shields some 690,000 young illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.
"This afternoon the Speaker and Majority Leader met with a number of House Democrats at their request to discuss DACA, and they reiterated that any solution needs to address border security and enforcement, which are the root causes of the problem," Ryan's spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, said, The Hill reported. "Discussions among the Republican conference will continue in the coming weeks."
Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, said conservatives would demand increased interior enforcement and border security to get any deal through.
He was not at the meeting.
Labrador said to prevent the legalization of Dreamers' status from attracting a new wave of undocumented immigrants, conditions would have to be such that federal authorities could quickly find and deport new illegal entrants.
"If they've been here for a day, it's not a moral issue. If they've been here for 12 or 15 years . . ." he said.