During a congressional field briefing In Miami to discuss the past Obama-Castro regime relationship, the issue that seemed to dwarf the briefing put together by Rep. Ron DeSantis, which included Reps. Carlos Curbelo, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ted Yoho, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Senator Marco Rubio, was that of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
Most Republicans and Democrats in Congress agree that something needs to be done to preserve the temporary immigration status for some 800,000 or so children brought to this country illegal of no fault of their own.
As Democrats and some Republicans like Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R), threaten to shut the government down if something is not done to help these “Dreamers,” others like Rep. Yoho (R) oppose any such measure of taking place.
After the meeting adjourned, Yoho said that he felt a DACA deal would get done because there were “several good proposals” being considered in the House.
Yoho supports Trump’s “wall” but doesn’t believe that a fence or wall is needed to cover the entire length of the U.S. southern border with Mexico, adding that regardless of the length of the wall, the focus needs to be on absolute “border security”
Yoho wants to legalize those DACA kids, but insists that the parents need to pay a price from breaking U.S. immigration law, saying that “the goal is not to deport” but to “get them some form of legal status” or put them on a “probationary period.”
“Enforce the laws on the books, then take that group of kids that are here and work them through so that they can get citizenship,” said Yoho, saying that “parents are a different story,” and that “the parents that came here illegally, knowingly broke the law, what I’d like to see is a program where they identify themselves-the goal is not to deport, the goal is to get them in some form of legal status-probationary period, and then it would be provisional 5 years at a time, good standing, and then I want to put in there you can never become a citizen.”
The pressure is on lawmakers in Washington to find common ground on the DACA issue, but a broader immigration reform agenda could be getting in the way of any bipartisan “Dreamer” bill from reaching the president’s desk.
