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US President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats have agreed to work together on legislation to protect "Dreamers", the second major act of cooperation between the previously warring sides in little over a week.
Following a dinner with Trump at the White House on Wednesday evening, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the "productive meeting" focused on "DACA", a program established by former President Barack Obama to protect illegal immigrants who were children when they were brought into the US.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. /AFP Photo
"We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that’s acceptable to both sides," Schumer and Pelosi said in a statement.
All year, Democrats have insisted that they will block any legislation that contains funding for the border wall, which many Republicans in Congress also do not support.
While White House officials have suggested legislation on DACA could move forward without wall funding, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders disputed the characterization that a deal had been reached to leave the wall out of any legislation focused on the Dreamers.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders tweeted that a deal to exclude a border wall from any agreement on Dreamers had not been reached. /Twitter Screenshot
"While DACA and border security were both discussed, excluding the wall was certainly not agreed to," she tweeted.
The talks that led to the agreement do not appear to have included House Speaker Paul Ryan or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Republican leaders Trump has frequently clashed with.
US President Donald Trump meets with congressional leadership in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on September 6, 2017.
The deal comes a week after Trump sided with Democrats over a major deal leading to extend the debt ceiling by three months. A day later he appeared to embrace abolishing the debt ceiling altogether, a Democratic policy proposal which McConnell on Tuesday described as a "challenging undertaking."
(REUTERS)
