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Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals

House members use rare maneuver to try to force vote on legislation to protect DREAMers

Alan Gomez
USA TODAY
Immigration activists pushing for Congress to save the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program hold signs during a protest March 5, 2018, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON — A group of Republican lawmakers used a rare congressional maneuver Wednesday to try and force the House to vote on a series of bills to protect DREAMers.

They were confident they would get enough Republicans to join their effort and bypass party leadership.

Nearly 700,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children have been in limbo ever since President Trump ended the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program last year. Federal courts have forced the administration to keep the program running, setting up a possible Supreme Court showdown later this year.

Democrats in Congress tried several times to pass permanent protections for DACA recipients, even prompting a brief government shutdown in January. But now a handful of moderate Republicans are trying to restart the DACA debate in the House.

Reps. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, Jeff Denham of California and Will Hurd of Texas filed what's known as a "discharge petition" on Tuesday. That is a procedure that allows a bill to reach the floor of the House even if it hasn't been approved by a committee, or scheduled for a vote by the speaker of the House. If a majority of House members sign on to the discharge petition, it bypasses the committee process and goes straight to the House floor.

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"This is about doing our job. This is about making sure we're not consolidating power in the White House,"  said Rep. Mia Love of Utah. "If we are not allowed to bring bills to the floor, to debate the bills on the floor, then the people ... that have voted for me to represent them will not have a voice on the House floor." 

Going around leadership, especially leadership in your own party, to file a discharge petition is rare and members were urged to go another route. But, they said, because of the way the House schedule works they only have a limited number of days they can bring up the bill before the end of the year.

Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the GOP Whip and No. 3 to Speaker Paul Ryan, told reporters that a discharge petition was "not the way to solve this problem."

"We are well aware that the speakers' preference was to not have this process," Curbelo said. Curbelo said that he tried to convince Ryan that the specific measure they were pushing, if passed, "actually empowers him" because it would allow Ryan to pick one bill to vote on. 

"We want to work collaboratively with the speaker. We're not looking, in any way, to undermine him," Curbelo said. 

Denham said that the group went to talk to Ryan on Tuesday to lay out their plans and it "was a very difficult conversation to have. But at the end of the day I've got to fight for my community and fight for my country." 

House Speaker Paul Ryan's spokeswoman AshLee Strong said: “We continue to work with our members to find a solution that can both pass the House and get the president’s signature."

"This is an issue that’s too important not to have a debate on," Hurd told USA TODAY. The Texas Republican — his district represents more than 800 miles of border — said no matter where Republicans are on the ideological spectrum they should support the measure because it would bring up a variety of bills for a vote.

There are 193 Democrats in the House, and most are expected to support the measure. That means at least 25 Republicans are needed to sign the petition. As of mid-afternoon Wednesday 15 GOP lawmakers had signed on. 

No Democrats had signed on but a leadership aide said that was because they were waiting for Republicans to show their commitment to the petition. Democrats, the aide said, are committed to debating and voting on DACA legislation. 

"We're gonna get the number," Denham told reporters.

Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., praised his Republican colleagues for taking such an extraordinary step that bucks the party leadership by trying to force a vote on DACA.

"I appreciate their commitment and resolve with that," said Aguilar, who is a co-sponsor of one of the bills that could be voted on if the petition is successful. "I give them a lot of credit for undertaking this effort and we'll see how broad of a support they can receive within the Republican conference."

If they get enough signatures, the process gets even deeper into arcane congressional tactics. The sponsors of the petition are proposing a "Queen of the Hill" maneuver to require the House to vote on four different DACA proposals.

The "Queen of the Hill" is a special rule that allows several bills to be brought to the House floor to be voted on. The one that receives the most votes is the only one adopted.

The maneuver has been used only seven times since it was first introduced in 1995, according to the Congressional Research Service. It followed a "King of the Hill" procedure that was used primarily to allow members to vote on multiple budget resolutions that featured many amendments and many votes.

The sponsors of the maneuver say they already have three bills lined up for consideration.

One is the DREAM Act, which has been unsuccessfully filed in Congress for nearly 20 years and would grant U.S. citizenship to DREAMers. On the other end of the spectrum, there is a bill from Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which includes cuts to legal immigration and strengthens border security. A third bill, co-sponsored by Hurd, would serve as a middle ground, granting U.S. citizenship to some DREAMers and strengthening border security.

Ryan would be given the authority to offer the fourth bill.

Wednesday's filing of the discharge petition drew quick praise from groups that have been frustrated by Congress' inability to pass, or even debate, a DACA solution.

"It's time for our elected officials to finally do their jobs and show voters where they stand," said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, an advocacy group created by tech companies that has pushed for a DACA fix. "We urge every member of Congress to sign onto this discharge petition, and stand up and vote."

The petition drew a swift rebuke from groups that oppose the idea of granting so-called “amnesty” to any undocumented immigrants.

Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that has lobbied against previous attempts to legalize undocumented immigrants, called the petition a “betrayal” of Republican voters, and accused the Republican sponsors of “conspiring to shove something down the throat of the American public” that they voted against in 2016.

Mehlman said his federation will mobilize its 1.9 million members and supporters to pressure GOP members to vote for the proposal that is heavy on border security and avoid the DREAM Act at all costs.

“This seems like an effort by the Republicans to lose the House,” he said. “But hey, that’s their problem.”

To qualify for DACA, created in 2012, DREAMers had to undergo a thorough background check, prove they arrived in the U.S. before their 16th birthday, were 30 or younger, were attending school or in the military, and had not committed a felony or serious misdemeanor. The program provided work permits and two-year reprieves from deportation that could be renewed.

Federal judges have ruled that the Trump administration used flawed legal arguments to end the program in September, forcing the Department of Homeland Security to continue honoring DACA protections and to process renewal applications.

Another federal judge ruled last month that the administration will have to start processing new applications for the program, but gave the administration 90 days to come up with a stronger argument against that.

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