Hill Leaders, White House Try to Chart Course for DACA

By Tal Kopan, CNN

As the clock continues to tick for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, Hill leaders and the White House are trying to cobble together a deal that could protect the young undocumented immigrants while still getting enough votes from both sides of the aisle to pass.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy will meet with Democratic leadership and representatives from caucuses such as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Wednesday evening in the Capitol, multiple sources familiar confirmed. Ryan said the meeting came at the caucuses' request in an interview broadcast by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Also Wednesday evening, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumerwill visit the President for a meeting, White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters confirmed. A source familiar told CNN the meeting will be a follow up to last week's sitdown and that Schumer and Pelosi will push for protecting recipients of DACA, among other issues.

Already a tension is emerging over what to attach to a DACA fix.

US immigration: DACA and Dreamers explained

Democrats have called for a vote on a clean version of the Dream Act, a bipartisan bill that would codify into law protections from deportation for young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children who have been given the ability to work and study under the Obama-era DACA program for five years. President Donald Trump earlier this month announced the program would end, and the two-year permits under the program will begin expiring in March without congressional action.

Meanwhile, Ryan ruled out the idea that Republicans would accept a standalone Dream bill on Wednesday. Republicans are pushing for some sort of border security at the minimum to go along with a DACA fix.

"What we're going to do in the House Republican Conference is pass a bill that has the support of the President, and therefore I believe the majority of our members, and that bill is going to have to include security measures to deal with the root cause of the problem, which is, we have unsecured borders," Ryan said in the AP interview Wednesday morning.