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The Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte is angering fellow Republicans by refusing to budge on his hard-line immigration legislation, refusing to make compromises with more moderate Republicans to resolve the crisis for Dreamers. His committee has become just one of the stumbling blocks to moving forward on legislation, but he's far from the only obstacle. Because there's a guy at the White House who can't decide what he wants.
Trump is floating a short-term deal protecting some young immigrants facing deportation in exchange for border wall funding in next week’s government spending bill, according to two people familiar with the discussions. But the effort lacks support among congressional Republicans. And the Trump administration is already backing away from the effort. […]
White House officials told Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other GOP leaders that Trump would be open to an immigration trade-off as part of a massive, must-pass spending bill funding the government through September. It would include several years of funding for a border wall in exchange for temporary protections for Dreamers.
Goodlatte's intransigence is giving his fellow hard-liners in the House the go-ahead to step up their threats to House Speaker Paul Ryan's leadership. They say Goodlatte's bill or nothing. "It would jeopardize the stability of leadership," said Rep. Steve King (R-IA). "Forcing amnesty into a must-pass bill? That’s beyond the toleration level [of] conservatives in this conference." For whatever reason, Ryan is unwilling to test them, so the impasse in the House seems unbreakable.
Not that the White House is capable of making it happen, either. On Wednesday, they floated the trial balloon of a trade in the spending bill—three years of wall funding for three years of Dreamer protections. But within just a few hours of the report of that offer in the Washington Post, the White House press office was saying Trump was opposed to the offer.
Shortly thereafter, the Daily Beast reported that the White House was indeed floating that deal, but "that the president and his team have not yet discussed the plan with lawmakers who would be critical for its ultimate passage." None of the Democratic leadership offices have been contacted, apparently. Neither had "Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) whose own DACA bill—which would provide three years of legal protection for undocumented minors in exchange for three years of border wall funding—most closely resembles the offer being floated." Nor had "Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), two other key players in the immigration debates."
But, you know, it's not like there’s any urgency here or anything. The bill just has to be passed by next Friday, or government funding runs out.