DEMS/DREAMERS/IMMIGRATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WALL: “The White House and congressional Democrats traded immigration offers futilely over the weekend, according to three sources familiar with the talks, leaving little chance of an immediate deal to protect Dreamers.
The White House on Sunday [3-18-18] made an 11th-hour push to include billions of dollars in border wall funding in a massive congressional spending bill due this week, but it clashed with congressional Democrats over how far to go in protecting young immigrants who face deportation, the sources said.
White House officials asked Democrats to approve $25 billion for President Donald Trump’s border wall in exchange for extending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program through fall of 2020, those sources said. That would give Trump his full wall funding request in the must-pass spending bill and still give him leverage over the DACA program heading into his 2020 reelection campaign.
But Democrats balked, demanding that the White House provide a pathway to citizenship to 1.8 million young immigrants eligible under the DACA program, those sources said.”
–Burgess Everett, “Border wall Dreamers deal implodes,” Politico online, Mar. 19, 2018 2:38pm