Bipartisan House Group Unveils Blunt Force Plan to Save DACA

A bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers are preparing to unveil what they hope will be a solution to the seemingly stalemated immigration debate.

Dubbed the “Problem Solvers Caucus,” the group—consisting of 24 Democrats and 24 Republicans—have been working together to tackle immigration reform since shortly after President Donald Trump announced he would be ending the DACA program in the fall of 2017. The proposal the group plans to unveil on Monday is for the most part similar to the one put forward by Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin and South Carolina Republican Lindsay Graham last summer, which in part replicated the long-since-dormant DREAM Act.

According to CNN, the package contains a path for citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, as well as border security funding, visas for Temporary Protected Status recipients poised to be kicked out of the county, and three year work permits for the undocumented parents of DACA recipients to stay in the U.S. Last week, the White House unveiled its own immigration proposal: an ultra-conservative checklist that would grant DACA recipients a pathway to citizenship in exchange for dramatic cuts to legal immigration.

The Trump administration already declared the Durbin/Graham proposal a non-starter when it was introduced in July. Given the administration’s stance, the Problem Solvers Caucus seems to be betting that amassing as much bipartisan support for the proposal will essentially force the hands of their more reluctant respective party leaders to move the legislation forward.

“I am frustrated that there are so many partisan extremists that are more interested in achieving political victories than in actually solving these important issues,” caucus co-chair Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY) said in a statement to CNN.

Currently, short term funding for the government is set to expire on February 8, at which point Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed to reopen debate on comprehensive immigration reform.