Back in February, President Donald Trump tried to use the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA—the Obama-era policy that provided legal protections to people brought to America illegally as children—to strong-arm his immigration agenda through a reluctant Congress. He…
Jeff Flake switched his vote from 'no' to 'yea,' and John Thune says the Arizona senator was 'negotiating another matter'
The intent is to refocus Congress and the White House on a long-term solution for DACA.
Before heading to church on Easter Sunday, President Trump took to Twitter to complain about America's "dumb immigration laws," saying he was no longer interested in making a deal with Democrats to reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and threatening to end the North…
In 2001, Australia's governing coalition, led by John Howard's Liberal party (who are, in fact, the country's conservative party) looked set to lose its majority. The opposition, led by the Labor party, had been leading in the polls for most of the year.
President Trump threw a potential wrench into congressional budget discussions Friday morning, threatening to veto the omnibus package that Republican leaders pushed to his desk just hours before to avoid a government shutdown.
Now, I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own. And believe me, right now dealing with Congress—believe me—believe me, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting. . . . But that’s not how—that’s not how our system works. That’s not how our democracy…
For recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, a sigh of relief: The Supreme Court on Monday effectively upheld a lower court’s ruling that the White House cannot end DACA, which provides legal status to people brought to America illegally as children, until challenges to the…
Arizona senator Jeff Flake plans to introduce a proposal offering temporary protection for “Dreamers” in exchange for funding for the construction of President Donald Trump’s border wall when the Senate returns next week.
After dedicating three days of floor time and casting a grand total of four votes on different proposals to address the precarious future of 700,000 unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the country as children, the United States Senate is taking a week off. And when lawmakers return from…
There’s been a lot of rancor in Washington over immigration this past month—you may recall President Trump’s concern about immigrants from s—hole countries, the ensuing s—storm in the media, and the less-memorable government shutdown. Four separate immigration bills were shot down in the Senate on…
On January 9, President Donald Trump sat down with a group of about two dozen members of Congress and told them in front of the nation that he would sign “whatever” bill they could come up with to protect nearly 700,000 Dreamers from deportation. Although Trump listed his priorities—securing funds…
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, senior writer Michael Warren and deputy online editor Jim Swift discuss gun control efforts in the wake of the Parkland school shooting, whether or not the Senate's open-ended immigration debate will yield any results, the White House's security clearance…
President Trump on Wednesday threw his weight behind Sen. Chuck Grassley’s immigration plan, urging the Senate to pass the “responsible and commonsense” proposal based on the White House’s immigration priorities and threatening to veto proposals that contain further Democratic concessions.
The freewheeling, open process that was expected to define this week’s high stakes immigration debate in the Senate is off to a slow start. On Tuesday morning, the chamber did what it does best—that is, not much.
President Trump drew a line in the sand on immigration reform in a Tuesday morning tweet, telling Congress that the freewheeling negotiations that began Monday are “our last chance” to grant legal status to nearly 2 million people brought to America illegally as children.
Lawmakers in the Senate voted overwhelmingly Monday night to move forward with a contentious immigration debate this week. Let the race to 60 votes begin.
Senator Rand Paul was not happy. A 652-page budget and appropriations deal, worked out by congressional leadership, was unveiled at midnight Wednesday, a mere 24 hours before the shutdown deadline.
Will there be another government shutdown this week? “I sure hope not,” said White House spokesman Hogan Gidley on Fox News Monday. But it doesn’t sound like there’s much hope for finding a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and border wall funding, which held up a budget…
“What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?” Bill Murray asks in Groundhog Day. “That about sums it up for me,” a drinking buddy answers.
Tuesday night is Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address, the annual event where the president speaks to a joint session of Congress with lofty rhetoric about where the country is and where he wants it to go. The Constitution doesn’t require the chief executive to deliver the State of the…
The Trump administration on Thursday released a framework for a compromise immigration deal to members of Congress. The plan calls for a pathway to citizenship for people brought to America illegally as children, increased spending for security on the U.S.-Mexico border, and new restrictions on…
Returning from Davos, the gathering of the global elite who had never before seen fit to invite this exhibitionist television celebrity, familiar with the bankruptcy courts, to eschew Big Macs in favor of canapés for a few days, Donald Trump faces a more demanding test next Tuesday, when he…
President Trump told reporters Wednesday that he welcomed the chance to speak under oath to Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating the Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. "I'm looking forward to it, actually," Trump told reporters during an impromptu briefing in the West…
Congress has just two weeks to come to a consensus on how to codify protections for the Dreamers—roughly 700,000 unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the United States as children—before government funding runs out February 8, or risk another shutdown scenario.
After a two-day impasse, enough Senate Democrats agreed to pass a short-term continuing budget resolution Monday, the first step to ending a government shutdown that began early Saturday morning. The measure passed overwhelmingly, with just 18 senators, mostly Democrats, opposing. The House of…
Lawmakers in the Senate reached an agreement to end the government shutdown Monday afternoon, but congressional Democrats who voted down a spending bill that would have kept the government open on Friday because it did not include a replacement for the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood…
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Trump negotiated toward a bargain on immigration reform that could have satisfied both parties and reduced the likelihood of a shutdown, the New York Times reported hours before government funding expired at midnight Saturday. Democrats would have…
Donald Trump and the White House have greeted the government shutdown, which has been in effect since the Senate was unable to pass a continuing budget resolution by early Saturday morning, as an opportunity to push this point: Democrats are extremists on immigration.
On the first anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the U.S. government shut down.
A West Wing source says the White House is “cautiously optimistic” that a government shutdown can be avoided by the Friday spending deadline. Questions remain: Can the House pass its continuing resolution (which leadership spent Wednesday whipping on) to fund the government for another month?…
On Wednesday afternoon, Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy offered his theory as to why aliens have not yet made contact with human civilization.
Amid floundering bipartisan negotiations over a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) replacement plan and a key spending caps deal, Republican leaders are trying to shore up enough votes to pass another stopgap funding bill before a government shutdown deadline on Friday.
Fake news has recently sprung up regarding President Donald Trump’s alleged use of the term “shithole,” claiming that Senator Dick Durbin has “revealed why he lied about Trump saying” the word.
As Washington stares down the barrel of a government shutdown, the White House is refusing to back down from its budget terms. Appearing on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning, press secretary Sarah Sanders said Congress must pass a continuing resolution now, then try to find a bipartisan deal on…
Immigration policy is a complicated issue. Or perhaps one should say immigration policies are complicated, since we have many different immigration laws and practices which interact in complex ways. I'm no expert on those policies, and in fact have adjusted my thinking about elements of them over…
After striking a conciliatory tone on immigration reform in a meeting with lawmakers Tuesday, President Trump returned to tougher line on Wednesday, insisting that any legislation reinstating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program must also include funding for a border wall.
After striking a conciliatory tone on immigration reform in a meeting with lawmakers Tuesday, President Trump returned to tougher line on Wednesday, insisting that any legislation reinstating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program must also include funding for a border wall.
President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. court system as “broken and unfair” on Wednesday, one day after a federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary injunction to prevent the White House from ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Say, where are those new sanctions on Iran? The White House was said last week to be considering new, non-nuclear sanctions against Iran in response to the anti-government and anti-regime protests—and the violent response by government forces. The administration last week did sanction five…
Lawmakers who met with President Donald Trump to continue bipartisan negotiations for a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) replacement Tuesday afternoon expressed some optimism for striking a deal before the March deadline, yet key disagreements remain.
*Correction, 1/3/17: The piece originally stated that "President Trump will meet with Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and Chuck Schumer on Wednesday to start on the list with a discussion of the government funding bill." Officials from the White House, not President Trump, will be meeting…
President Trump came home from his Asia trip with a significant political conundrum on his hands: What to do about Roy Moore. For days, the White House has been publicly cautious in rendering any judgment on the credible sexual misconduct allegations against Moore, even as Republican senators and…
A trio of Republican senators are hoping to solve the DACA problem, and they have reason to believe President Trump will get on board. The senators, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Orrin Hatch of Utah, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, have introduced the Solution for Undocumented Children through…
In President Trump’s politics, “the overall impression matters more than the details,” writes Newt Gingrich in his book Understanding Trump. This is not only true and insightful, it also explains Trump’s conduct of late.
In President Trump’s politics, “the overall impression matters more than the details,” writes Newt Gingrich in his book Understanding Trump. This is not only true and insightful, it also explains Trump’s conduct of late.
"I will immediately terminate President Obama’s illegal executive order on immigration. Immediately.” That was Donald Trump speaking on the day he launched his presidential campaign: June 16, 2015. The executive order he was referencing was the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. It…
One of the primary challengers to Donald Trump’s top Senate rival says she’s sticking with the president after his immigration deal with Democratic leaders.
Nobody knew MAGA could be so complicated.
On Wednesday night Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer dined with Donald Trump. Following the meeting, the Democrats announced that they had reached a deal with the president on DACA, to give permanent amnesty to the 800,000 or so DREAMers who are, through no real fault of their own, in the country…
Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi came away from their Wednesday White House dinner with a simple message: President Donald Trump is ready to reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and he doesn’t mind not getting a border wall in return.
The president’s effort to help get tax reform passed by the end of this year is in full swing. Tuesday night Donald Trump held a bipartisan dinner at the White House with three Republican senators on the Senate Finance committee and three moderate Democrats up for reelection next year in swing…
When the White House first announced its intent to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program last week, many speculated that President Donald Trump was planning to use the issue as part of a grand bargain to win additional funding for immigration enforcement and a border wall.
In June 2012, when President Obama issued the executive order known as DACA—“deferred action on childhood arrivals”—he had a good moral case but a bad legal one. The order allowed illegal immigrants who had entered the country as minors—people who hadn’t come to America of their own will—to apply…
In June 2012, when President Obama issued the executive order known as DACA—“deferred action on childhood arrivals”—he had a good moral case but a bad legal one. The order allowed illegal immigrants who had entered the country as minors—people who hadn’t come to America of their own will—to apply…
“This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast—man's laws, not God's—and if you cut them down . . . d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.”
On Wednesday morning, House Speaker Paul Ryan called Democrats’ plans to raise the debt ceiling and fund the government for just three months “a ridiculous idea.” Hours later, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi announced that President Trump had agreed to help them do just that.
Has there been an administration in the modern era where the internal debates are hashed out in so public a manner? Consider Tuesday, when two members of Donald Trump’s cabinet spoke out forcefully on unresolved policy questions.
The Trump administration will end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the Obama-era directive that provided work permits and protection from deportation for illegal immigrants brought to the country as children, after a six-month window, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced…
For a town accustomed to punting major policy issues, the Trump administration’s boot of DACA to Congress could nab it a Pro Bowl nod.
Will hundreds of thousands of young immigrants, brought illegally to the United States as minors by their families, suddenly be at risk for deportation? That’s what hangs in the balance with the Trump administration’s expected announcement that he will fulfill a campaign promise and rollback the…
President Donald Trump has decided to end the Obama-era program under which young illegal immigrants who came to the country as children could avoid deportation and receive work permits, Politico reported Sunday.
As the White House debates whether to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Republican congressional leaders are pressuring the president to keep the Obama-era protections for illegal immigrants who came to the country as minors.
Remember when Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, was on thin ice with President Trump? For a couple weeks in July, the president was passive-aggressively criticizing Sessions on a near daily basis. But ever since John Kelly took over as chief of staff at the very end of July, Trump’s uttered…
Frequent WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Ike Brannon has a new Cato Institute research paper out that looks at the costs of repealing Deferred Access for Childhood Arrivals:
The issue of illegal immigration was a central plank in the campaign of President-elect Donald Trump and played no small role in getting him elected to the White House. His populist, "America First" position spoke to the economic anxieties of many Americans, and it could be argued that he has a…
In the wake of Donald Trump's election, many colleges and universities vowed to become "sanctuary campuses" for students in the country illegally. The matter will take on a special urgency in the event that soon-to-be President Trump repeals the executive-ordered Deferred Action for Childhood…