Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said she will not vote for a bill to keep the government open if it did not include legislation to protect Dreamers, people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program who were brought to the U.S. as children by illegal immigrants.
"I'm going to have a problem with it. We have to protect these kids," the California Democrat said Monday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
Harris said that deciding between the Dreamers and keeping the government open is a "false choice" and "we can do both."
"They're [the Dreamers] sleeping 10-deep on someone's living room floor, walking through the halls of the United States Congress because they believe in our government, and these kids believe that if we see them and hear their stories, we would acknowledge that we should continue to protect them, as we promised we would," Harris told MSNBC.
The senator said DACA should not be seen as a partisan issue and "it's a mischaracterization of this issue to suggest there's a left and a right on this. Frankly, I think there's a wrong and a right, period."
A vote is expected this week for Congress to keep the government funded past Feb. 8, and Democrats said in January that they would require a separate vote for the DACA program if no immigration plan was achieved by then, the Washington Examiner reported.
Republicans want to add increased border security to the bill, which has prevented an agreement, the Examiner reported.
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