GOP Rep. Michael McCaul said the president is “100 percent” behind Republican efforts to pass a moderate immigration bill in the House – despite his urging last week that Republicans should “stop wasting their time.”
“The president’s still 100 percent behind us,” said the Texas Republican, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, on “Fox News Sunday.” McCaul said he spoke to the White House on Saturday about the issue.
McCaul’s comments follow a tweet from President Donald Trump last week that said, “Republicans should stop wasting their time on Immigration until after we elect more Senators and Congressmen/women in November." Democrats, the president said, "are just playing games, have no intention of doing anything to solves this decades old problem. We can pass great legislation after the Red Wave!"
McCaul is the sponsor of a “four pillars” moderate immigration reform bill set to be taken up by Congress this week, which would provide a path to citizenship for Dreamers and end family separation, as well as set limits on legal immigration and provide funds for a border wall. He said he was optimistic about the bill’s prospects Sunday.
“I do think there are 218 Republicans that agree with the four pillars of border security,” he said, defending the bill’s controversial DACA fix as a merit-base measure.
But he added that the House should “at a minimum have to deal with the family separation” issue, if it were to be unsuccessful at passing the full legislation.
Separately, McCaul was unable to say for sure how the Trump administration would handle family separations after the president last week signed an executive order halting family separations.
“It’s very unclear how this executive order is playing out,” McCaul said.
About the same time McCaul was appearing on Fox, Trump tweeted again on the subject: “Democrats, fix the laws. Don’t RESIST. We are doing a far better job than Bush and Obama, but we need strength and security at the Border! Cannot accept all of the people trying to break into our Country. Strong Borders, No Crime!”
The original story can be found here.
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