President Trump’s offer of a path to citizenship for illegal immigrant Dreamers is helping “drag the Senate to the right” in negotiation to fix DACA, Rep. Martha McSally said Thursday.
“What I think the president is doing is showing that he is a master negotiator and that he has been negotiating in good faith throughout this disastrous shutdown,” the Arizona Republican said on Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.”
“He is trying to drag the Senate to the right, to show, ’Look, I am willing to negotiate but I want my key objectives for the American people accomplished,’” Ms. McSally said.
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The fight over fixing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an Obama-era temporary amnesty for Dreamers that will phase out March 5, led to a three-day government shutdown that ended Monday.
Lawmakers are now back at the negotiating table and facing a new deadline of Feb. 8 to keep the government open.
Mr. Trump said Wednesday that he would accept a 12-year path to citizenship for Dreamers, illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, as part of a deal for strong border security and immigration reforms.
The offer buoyed Democrats but outraged Mr. Trump’s anti-amnesty base.
Mr. Trump earlier rejected a proposal by the Senate’s bipartisan Gang of Six that put more than 1 million Dreamers on a path to citizenship but did not fully impose border security and immigration reforms demanded by the president.
Mr. Trump plans Monday to send Congress a legislative framework for immigration reform that details the four pillars for a deal: limit family-based chain migration, end the Visa Diversity Lottery that hands out 50,000 visas a year in a random drawing, improve border security that includes a border wall, and find permanent solution to DACA.
Mrs. McSalley, who is running for Senate this year, stopped short of backing citizenship for Dreamers.
She is a co-sponsor with House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Virginia Republican, of a bill that would give Dreamers legal status but deny them citizenship, while imposing get-tough measures on sanctuary cities and speeding deportation of new illegal immigrants.
Mr. Trump also has voiced support for the Goodlatte bill.
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