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“I don’t see a way to get there,” Durbin, the Senate majority whip, told CNN when asked about the path to citizenship. “I want it. I think we’re a lot more likely to deal with quiet elements.”
Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, has indicated that Congress is more likely to be able to come up with specific elements of immigration policy, rather than a comprehensive immigration bill that advocates have been trying to enact for more than a decade. Durbin highlighted the decision by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to spend this week on two specific elements – a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children, known as Dreamers, as well as legal protections for agricultural workers – as a clear indication of the direction this Congress will take.
“I think President Pelosi found out that she did not support the comprehensive bill in the House,” Durbin said. “And that also indicates where he is in the Senate.”
Durbin said he believes the Senate Judiciary Committee will not act on the legislation until April at the earliest.
After the two bills passed in the House, Durbin said, “I have to sit down with my colleagues to see if there is a bipartisan consensus to move these two as starting points.”
Yet Pelosi still wants to move a full bill forward – even if he has little chance in the Senate. And in a clear sign of the challenges facing Democrats, Senator Lindsey Graham, a senior GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who helped craft a bipartisan immigration deal that passed the Senate in 2013 , says now is not the time to make one given the situation at the border.
“We’re not going to make a full immigration bill,” Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, told CNN. “I just don’t see the politics of it. It’s too out of control.”
Graham, who was once friends with Biden but has allied closely with former President Donald Trump, said Biden had not called him since taking office. Asked why he hasn’t spoken with the president yet, Graham replied, “He’s a busy man. No rush.”
Others like Senator Joe Manchin caught Biden’s attention. Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who backed the 2013 bill, said he would do it again. But he also said the border situation was a “crisis,” going beyond the White House, and said he would wait until he was briefed before assessing the administration’s response.
“Whatever message was sent – it was definitely misinterpreted,” Manchin said. “It’s a crisis – oh it’s a crisis.”
Under the Trump administration, border officials had turned away migrants, including children, after implementing a public health order linked to the pandemic. While the Biden administration still relies heavily on this policy for adults and families, the administration has decided it will allow children to arrive in the United States on their own, resulting in more children in federal custody. .
Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn on Monday said the southern border crisis made it difficult to seek bipartisan consensus in Congress on needed changes to immigration laws, including passing legislation to help the beneficiaries of the deferred action program for the arrival of children.
“I have publicly stated that I would like to find a permanent solution for DACA recipients,” Cornyn told reporters. “The problem is, every time we try to meet the Democrats halfway, they move the goals.”
He highlighted the current situation at the border.
“Unless there is a way to bring some control and some order to this situation, I think it’s very difficult to do other things on a bipartisan basis,” said Cornyn. “He’s one of the victims of the inability to think ahead. If you want to reverse Trump’s policies, what’s your plan? Well, they didn’t have a plan. Other than saying, ‘don’t come now “When all the other signals are, you know,” come in. If you can get here, you’re going to stay. “
“It’s a huge problem,” he added.
This story has been updated with additional reports.
CNN’s Ted Barrett and Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.
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