Kushner avoids key issues of GOP Senators on his immigration plan

President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been confronted with sharp questions regarding his plans to overhaul the immigration system during a closed meeting on Tuesday with Republican senators – and not failed to propose solutions to some key concerns, according to government officials who cast doubt on the viability of the proposal.

Publicly, Senators emerged from their weekly lunch at Capitol Hill, applauding the speech of the White House's senior adviser aimed at getting American immigration to a merit-based system, giving priority to highly skilled workers, task that he had undertaken under the orders of Trump.

But privately, Republican officials said Kushner did not have clear answers to some of the friendly public's questions, prompting Trump's other senior advisor, Stephen Miller, to pause from time to time and resume the conversation. .

A senior Trump administration official, aware of the meeting, disputed this claim, saying that Kushner, Miller and senior economic adviser Kevin Hassett had jointly presented the plan as a team.

"It's a detailed proposal to unify the Republicans," said the official. "It gives us a much stronger position to then discuss other things."

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss what happened at the meeting.

At one point, Kushner told Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) that her plan would not deal with delayed action for child arrivals, the program that protects from deportation undocumented immigrant youth brought to the United States as children. This has caused confusion in the minds of many senators, because it is essential to deal with the "dreamers", as this group of immigrants is often called, to obtain democratic support.

Republicans and congressional Democrats fought to try to reach a compromise on immigration that would illegally treat the 11 million immigrants to the United States. Since Trump took office, they have repeatedly failed, with the president taking an uncompromising stance and claimed billions of US dollars for the construction of a border wall that he had promised Mexico to finance. .

Last week, Trump met privately with a dozen GOP senators at the White House to discuss the plan. Faced with the Democratic opposition, this effort was mainly perceived as a political document behind which Trump and the Republicans could rally.

[White House tries to rally Republicans around changes to legal immigration system]

But some GOP senators left the meeting wondering if Kushner understood the problem, GOP officials said. Although some appreciated his efforts, they did not think his plan would move forward anytime soon. No senator has yet moved forward to turn Kushner's plan into legislation.

"He is in his own little world," said one familiar with the discussion at the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely describe the session. "He did not give a lot of details about what was going on in [his plan]. . . . And there have been a number of cases where people had to step in and answer questions because he could not do it. "

The White House did not have an immediate comment on the session. The head of administration said that the omission of DACA was a desire to "see what we agree on at the time", with details also left out for a reason: "We are not giving no details because we do not want to leak. "

While he was going, Senator Kevin Cramer (RN.D.) said that there was "a lot of encouragement in the room for what they have done, a lot of encouragement. But, insisting that the Republicans would involve the Democrats, Kramer laughed and said, "The first is to get those guys involved."

Kushner also attempted to develop a peace plan for the Middle East after decades of fighting by inserting him into the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These discussions failed, however. After Tuesday's luncheon, Republican Senate representatives expressed little hope regarding his immigration efforts.

During the session, Kushner said his proposal would create a points system based on merit and that immigrants should pass a civic test before they can even access the points system. He said Trump would soon deliver a speech on immigration, a topic that, according to his allies, could lead to his reelection in 2020.

But Kushner confused the senators when he said that one of the central tenets of his immigration plan would be the unification of immigrant families, including mothers and children. Senators were not sure what he meant, although they had in the past rebuffed the Trump government's current policy of separation of families.

When Collins asked about undocumented immigrant youth, Kushner said Trump had not asked him to tackle the problem. Kushner said the president wanted to focus on issues that "bring people together," noting that his bill focused on a system based on merit and border security.

"The president asked us to determine what we could all be," said the individual, summing up Kushner's remarks.

Collins confirmed his concerns in a statement to the Washington Post. "I am concerned about the plight of young people at DACA. They can not be excluded from any immigration program, "she said.

GOP officials said Kushner also seemed to have trouble responding to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), Who asked how the plan would deal with undocumented immigrants already in the country. The head of administration said that Cornyn had rather praised the plan. A spokesman for Cornyn declined to comment on the private meeting.

It has happened that Miller intervened to help Kushner, particularly with regard to how the plan would treat low-skilled workers. "Miller has interrupted it a lot," said the individual.

The joint appearance of Kushner, who is relatively moderate on the issue, and Miller, an immigration infiltrator, was apparently aimed at presenting a united front to the senators who were often upset by the internal dissensions of the White House that hindered political projects. But the presentation failed to convince many Republicans in the room that the real unit was close.

Hassett, who heads the Council of Economic Advisers, also tried to help Kushner answer senators 'questions about the economic impact of the plan, particularly its impact on Americans' wages. Hassett said the plan would generate $ 600 billion in net federal revenues. Hassett stated that the White House had made an informal score and felt that its proposal would increase the average salary of immigrants, as they would attract more educated and skilled workers.

Even if Kushner had been able to answer all their questions, the Senate Republicans seemed skeptical about the possibility of doing something with his proposal. Although they have long wanted to reshape the immigration system, they know it has to be bipartisan – and Kushner's proposal would never get support from the Democratic Party.

"I thought the presentation was very effective," said Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah). "It would have gone brilliantly among the Republicans. But we must also get Democrats. "

Josh Dawsey contributed to this report.

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