WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner said Tuesday he would join fellow Coloradan Michael Bennet in backing a bill that would shield young immigrants from deportation and give them a pathway to citizenship — a major shift for the Republican.
to co-sponsor the DREAM Act just hours after the Trump administration said it would that protects many of these same immigrants from removal proceedings.
Trump has given lawmakers until March to come up with an alternate plan, but finding agreement within the Colorado delegation, let alone Congress, will be a challenge.
Two Colorado Republicans said they were sympathetic to the plight of DACA recipients — — but that any attempt to address the issue must be part of a broader effort that includes enhanced border security.
“If you take enough of those issues and bring them together, I think we can reach a compromise on immigration,” said U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, R-Windsor.
Added U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, in a brief interview at Reagan National Airport: “We’ve got to be able to create certainty for (DACA recipients), but we’ve got to secure the border as well so this isn’t replicated over and over again.”
The divide underscored the difficulty in passing any immigration-related bill related in a Republican-controlled Congress.
While the addition of Gardner to the DREAM Act is significant, the House long has been the bigger barrier to compromise, a reality punctuated in 2013 when the House failed to act on a comprehensive immigration bill that passed the upper chamber with the support of 68 senators.
But Gardner will have at least one GOP ally in Colorado: U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman of Aurora. Coffman is a co-sponsor of the on the House side, and on Tuesday he pressed ahead with a last-ditch parliamentary maneuver to pass legislation that would extend DACA for three years.
“I see the discharge petition as a way to bring legislation to the floor should Republican leadership fail to allow a floor vote on a bill to protect these young people,” Coffman said in a statement.
Earlier in their careers, Coffman and Gardner supported policies that took a more hardline approach to immigration. But as Colorado has shifted politically and demographically, each has staked out a more moderate position — highlighted by Gardner’s latest move.
Gardner long has espoused a security-first strategy to immigration, and in 2013 he backed a failed effort to block DACA, the same program that Trump plans to end.
He would switch his DACA position a year later — when he was running for Senate against then-U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo. — but it wasn’t until Tuesday that he came out in support of the DREAM Act, a perennial goal of immigration activists.
“Children who came to this country without documentation, through no fault of their own, must have the opportunity to remain here lawfully,” Gardner said in a statement. “I have long called for an overhaul of our country’s immigration system and believe this is an important step.”
Under the DREAM Act, immigrants who illegally came to the U.S. before they turned 18 can qualify for legal residence, and eventually citizenship, if they meet certain conditions. Those include a high school diploma or GED certificate and the absence of a felony record.
Participants also must submit personal information to federal authorities, much as DACA recipients have done already.
That Bennet, a Democrat, would join the DREAM Act effort is not surprising. On Tuesday, he criticized Trump’s decision on DACA as the “height of cruelty,” and in 2013 he helped write the comprehensive immigration bill that passed the Senate.
He couldn’t sign onto the DREAM Act before now, however, because its supporters wanted to add lawmakers in pairs of one Democrat and one Republican, congressional aides said.
“The DREAM Act offers a promising solution amid a time of uncertainty for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants around the country — especially in light of the presidentap decision today to rescind DACA,” Bennet said in the joint statement with Gardner. “While comprehensive immigration reform should remain a long-term solution, we also need a more immediate fix to protect Dreamers.”