This disaster is the handiwork of Donald Trump

This disaster is the handiwork of Donald Trump


As we barrel towards a government shutdown, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that one of the crucial reasons for the impasse is that we just don’t know what President Trump would need in the way of realistic concessions from Democrats that might induce him to agree to a deal protecting the “dreamers.”
In fact, it’s not even clear that the White House or even Trump himself know the answer to this question. And so, if we have a government shutdown, Trump’s profound cluelessness about the issues, and the degree to which this renders him susceptible to manipulation by the cynical immigration hard-liners around him, may be key reasons why.

I’m told that in a series of meetings between Democratic and GOP leaders and Trump administration officials, Democrats repeatedly pressed their counterparts to make a counter-offer, after Trump rejected the bipartisan deal reached recently that would legalize the dreamers in exchange for some concessions. They have gotten nothing serious in response, I’m told.
Frank Sharry, the executive director of America’s Voice, told me that senior Democratic aides have been privately briefing him and other immigration advocates on these meetings. They have included Democrats Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) and Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), and Republicans Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), the respective Number Twos in their caucuses, and senior White House and Department of Homeland Security officials.
Sharry said that Democratic aides detailed for advocates a situation in which the Democrats asked the Republicans and the administration officials to put forward a counter-proposal that would help flesh out what Trump might need to accept a deal. Durbin and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) recently negotiated a bipartisan compromise that would protect the dreamers in exchange for more border security money, tweaks to family-based migration and cuts to visas given out to people from historically lower-immigration countries.
[It’s on Republicans to stop a shutdown]
“The Democrats keep asking for a counter to the Graham-Durbin bill that would lay out what the White House wants, to see if there’s a middle ground between the proposal on the table and the White House position,” Sharry told me, characterizing the briefings he’s received on these meetings. In response, Sharry said, “there have been no such proposals.”
Instead, Sharry said, White House officials have continued to circulate documents at these meetings reiterating that Trump wants a number of very hard-line proposals, such as huge sums of money for a border wall and big cuts to legal immigration, which Sharry described as “the Stephen Miller-nativist wish list.” But Democrats continue to ask for proposals that would show what Trump might accept as a middle ground, to no avail.

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