“The overwhelming majority of Democrats” would rather send home 800,000 “DREAMer” illegal immigrants than work with Trump on immigration reform, according to Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.)
In an interview with MSNBC on Sunday, Castro said that, if Trump tried to include funding for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border in his immigration reform bill, most Democrats would vote against it – even if it meant that DREAMers, illegal aliens brought to this country as children, had to return home.
“I will certainly vote against it, and I know most Democrats will vote against it,” Castro explained. “I can only speak for the House of Representatives, of course. In the Senate, they have different rules, and it’s a different matter, but I would suspect that you will have the overwhelming majority of Democrats vote against it, yes.”
But Castro cautioned that he doesn’t think his party will have to choose between DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, as the program is known and the wall.
“I’m still optimistic that the Congress can come to some kind of compromise on DACA so that we can make sure that 800,000 young people – most of whom have only known the United States as their home – are not subject to deportation,” he said. “I’m still optimistic about that. I think we have to be optimistic about it. I’ve heard discussion about a border wall, but bear in mind that this is no longer a matter of convincing the American people to do something for the DACA kids – 83 percent of Americans support DACA relief. It’s a matter of convincing President Trump and the Republican majority in Congress to listen to the American people and do the right thing.”
“I think that’s going to be a very tough deal for the president to make,” Castro added. “We don’t want to trade the lives of 800,000 people for a wall across the United States. And bear in mind also, again, that the majority of American people and the majority of people in Texas, for example, did not support President Trump’s border wall. So we believe that this is an issue that is unto itself, that DACA should be handled with a clean DREAM Act and if there are elements of border security that President Trump and the Republicans want to pursue, they can pursue that in separate legislation.”
AAN Staff
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