WASHINGTON _ The White House is racing to finish an immigration plan focused on enforcement that could be introduced before Democrats take control of the House. It would include funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall, restrictions on asylum and cuts to legal immigration, according to four people familiar with the plan.
But the plan is already being resisted by some in the White House, who are urging President Donald Trump to agree to a more moderate plan that would limit cuts to legal immigration and protect young immigrants who came to the United States as children.
"There is a schism within the White House over this issue," said Jessica Vaughn, a former State Department foreign service officer and director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. "There are some folks who think it's important to push those provisions now under the guise of merit-based immigration reform. And others who are opposed to that. They want the emphasis to be on enforcement."
The proposal would partially be a permanent legislative change to action Trump took Thursday to confront the caravan of migrants nearing the United States by invoking national security powers used to implement last year's "travel ban" to deny asylum to migrants who enter the country illegally.
The two plans are setting up a new battle in the Republican Party between immigration hardliners, led by White House adviser Stephen Miller, who wants to rewrite the U.S. legal immigration system; and more centrist Republicans and business leaders who want to protect the young immigrants and provide more access to foreign workers.
Democrats won control of the House Tuesday. That means Trump will work with a divided Congress come January. But any plan would be difficult to pass, especially one focused on enforcement, when Congress is also trying to avoid a government shutdown over changes in a spending bill and trying to push through other difficult measures such as a farm bill.
"I think the lame duck session of Congress is a great opportunity to pass immigration reform so I may still have some important work to do when I get back," said Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., after he conceded his re-election bid on Tuesday. "I sure hope we have a chance. This would be the best time to do it especially because we can probably expect more gridlock or even worse gridlock in the next Congress."
Curbelo was defeated in the election Tuesday.
Congress will be in session for 12 work days before its holiday break. A new Congress is sworn in in January. In that time, it has to pass a spending bill before Dec. 7 or the government will have to shut down with no funding.
Earlier this year, Trump warned that a "good shutdown" may be necessary to force Democrats to agree to spend more than $20 billion on a border wall. But he appeared to back away from those threats this week after seeing the election results.
Trump said at a news conference Wednesday that he's "not necessarily" committed to a shutdown and indicated Democrats may be willing to work with him.
"I speak to Democrats all the time and they agree that a wall is necessary," Trump said. "We want to build the whole wall at one time, not in chunks."
Democrats are unlikely to be in a negotiating mood during the lame-duck session, given their pickup of 30 seats in Tuesday's elections.
Trump is seeking to decrease numbers and address a group of thousands of migrants traveling toward the U.S. border. He used the group as a final rallying cry as the midterm campaigning wound down, saying the group included criminals. The caravan amounted to an "invasion" of the U.S, Trump said. He sent troops to the border.
Trump wants funding for the border wall to fulfill his signature campaign promise as he looks toward the 2020 election.
The White House and Congress have repeatedly tried and failed to agree on a plan that would fund the wall and provide protections for the young immigrants who have been able to work and remain in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that Trump cannot immediately end the DACA program, which he tried to do last year after several states threatened to sue to force an end to it.
Trump has also pushed a proposal to pay for the wall in exchange for legal status immediately �� and later citizenship to the 1.8 million DACA beneficiaries.
The new proposals under discussion would take aspects of earlier proposals such as one by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., that would step up enforcement. But there are many unresolved questions about the White House's proposals, including a merit-based immigration system that would reduce focus on family connections and limit immigrants from entering the country based on their job skills.
The idea that a similar proposal would pass now has raised concerns among Republicans about whether Trump is losing one of his best opportunities to use what remaining leverage he has to win funding for the border wall.
Leaders such as outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have urged the president to compromise and include protections for DACA recipients.
And those in the White House pushing for a more moderate proposal have warned Trump that any proposal needs some Democratic support and not making a deal now could mean starting the 2020 campaign season with no border wall and DACA beneficiaries being deported.
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(Bryan Lowry and Alex Daugherty contributed to this report.)
