WASHINGTON — Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on Tuesday took President-elect Donald Trump up on his dare to Democrats to work with him to lock in legal status for “Dreamers” and, with the clock ticking, he pushed President Joe Biden to do more to protect immigrants from Trump’s threats of mass deportations.
"Name the time and place, Mr. President, I'll be there,” Durbin said at a hearing he called to throw a spotlight on Trump’s mass deportation plans.
Durbin is in his last weeks as the Judiciary Committee chair, with Republicans taking control when the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3. With Trump’s looming threats for mass deportations potentially having an enormous impact on the Chicago area — and obviously beyond — Durbin held a hearing Tuesday morning titled “How Mass Deportations Will Separate American Families, Harm Our Armed Forces, and Devastate Our Economy.”
The point of the hearing was for Democratic senators to take advantage, in the waning days of their party's control of the White House and Senate, of their ability to put the case against mass deportations to the public. The Republicans were not moved.
Before the hearing Durbin and other Senate Democrats, including Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, released a letter to Biden with an urgent plea to take decisive action before it is too late. Trump’s incoming border czar, Tom Homan, in Chicago on Monday seemed to salivate at the chance to make Chicago a national example in the Trump crackdown.
The senators said in their letter, “We write now because the window to secure and finalize your administration’s policies is closing rapidly. We urge you to act decisively between now and the inauguration of the President-elect to complete the important work of the past four years and protect immigrant families.”
Durbin is the father of the “Dreamer” movement, having first introduced the “Dream Act” — the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act — in 2001. Dreamers are immigrants brought to the U.S. as youths into the country illegally, through no fault of their own. Under former President Barack Obama, “Dreamers” got some temporary protections under what became known as “DACA,” short for the program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. When Trump was president the first time, he tried to end the DACA program.
The senators asked Biden to issue executive orders to extend what is called Temporary Protected Status to people from eligible countries, as designated by Biden. The senators also wanted Biden to “expedite the processing of benefit requests” for DACA recipients; install safeguards to let DACA holders travel to another country; and “prioritize adjudication of pending asylum claims.”
Executive orders come and go. Trump can void Biden’s executive actions with his own pen.
The last item on the senators' list — “finalize the rule providing automatic extensions for those with work permits and prioritize work permit processing” — happened on Tuesday.
The Department of Homeland Security announced what is called a “final rule” to permanently increase “the automatic extension period of employment authorization and employment authorization documentation from up to 180 days to up to 540 days for eligible non-citizens who file a timely request to renew their work authorization.”
This work permit rule has been in the works for some time. Unlike an executive order, it takes a lot of time to revise a rule.
As of Tuesday, it’s not clear yet what more Biden will do on the immigration front. Meanwhile, there is a fear that once Trump takes office, “Dreamers” could be swept up in mass deportations.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Trump seemed to open the door to making a deal to give “Dreamers” safeguards.
“I will work with the Democrats on a plan. And if we can come up with a plan, but the Democrats have made it very, very difficult to do anything. Republicans are very open to the Dreamers,” Trump said.
Durbin said he watched Trump’s “Meet the Press” interview. And though Durbin has many reasons to be skeptical when it comes to Trump and immigration — he had a front-row seat to Trump's first White House term — Durbin knows something about the art of the deal. So he is taking Trump up on his dare.
Said Durbin, “He said some positive things from my point of view, and he really challenges, on the Democratic side, to work with him when it came to the Dreamers. I accept the challenge. Name, the time and place, Mr. President, I'll be there.”
