Top senators and White House officials are putting together a deal to resolve the fate of illegal immigrants brought to the country as children and protected by an Obama-era program that'll end in March, Politico reported.
At a Tuesday meeting, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly pledged the Trump administration would have a list of border security and other policy changes it wants to be part of a deal on so-called Dreamers, Politico reported, adding the plan could come in a matter of days.
"We couldn't finish this product, this bill, until we knew where the administration was," Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who's been negotiating a compromise on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for weeks, told Politico. "And that's why this meeting was so important."
According to Politico, Kelly and other administration officials related how much of the southern border is currently fenced and how much more the White House would want in exchange for a DACA deal.
Senators also pressed the White House on other immigration demands, such as an overhaul of the nation's asylum system or a change in policy toward unaccompanied children who are apprehended at the border, and whether they needed to be included in the DACA talks.
"There's a lot of nice things we need to do as part of broader comprehensive reform, but we need to have a bill in January and we need to know what has to be in it and what the administration will support," Flake told Politico.
The bipartisan group of senators — Flake and Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Michael Bennet, D-Colo., James Lankford, R-Okla., Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Cory Gardner, R-Colo. — has discussed a legalization plan that would marry the DREAM Act, drafted by Durbin and Graham, with a more conservative proposal for Dreamers written by Tillis and Lankford, Flake said.
Those seven senators attended Tuesday's meeting with Kelly, as did Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia, Politico reported.
"I think what we're trying to do is to get some clarity from the administration on what they require by way of border security and other enforcement measures," Cornyn told Politico as he left the meeting. "We got a promise to provide it to us and hopefully we'll get that in short order. Maybe even this week."
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