Vermont Business Magazine Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) issued the following statements Thursday after the Senate voted on four immigration proposals. A bi-partisan bill failed to gather the 60 votes needed to advance (54-45). It would have provided a pathway for 1.8 million children of undocumented immigrants to gain citizenship, while also providing $25 billion for the Mexican border wall. Meanwhile, President Trump, who vehemently opposed the compromise bill, had his White House-supported bill defeated (39-60).
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is the Vice Chairman of the Appropriations Committee and a leading member of the Judiciary Committee, said: “The President pitched Dreamers and their communities into crisis by rescinding DACA. Then he promptly reversed his initial soothing words and his pledge to support bipartisan solutions. He has done everything he can – even prompting a government shutdown -- to repeatedly move the goalposts and to undermine every single sincere bipartisan effort to fix what he broke. He has cynically used Dreamers as hostages to his whims, and he is prolonging the nightmarish uncertainty that they, their families and their communities are living through each and every day. The lack of leadership and mishandling of this are unconscionable.
“If he truly cares about the future of the Dreamers, he can fix the crisis he created.”
Sanders Statement: "With an extremely anti-immigrant president in office who precipitated the current DACA crisis, I fear very much about the fate of 800,000 Dreamers who will soon be losing their legal protections under DACA and be subject to deportation.
"The Rounds-King compromise bill, vigorously opposed by the Trump administration, would have provided legal protection and a path toward citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants. I am sorry that it was not passed.
"That said, this clearly is not the bill I would have written. What we should be doing is passing a clean DREAM Act with a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and their parents. We also need to move forward and pass comprehensive immigration reform that will allow people to come out of the shadows and will unite families – not divide them.
"While we need strong border security, President Trump's idea of spending $25 billion to build a wall on the Mexican border is totally absurd and a waste of money. I will do everything I can to prevent that from ever happening."
WASHINGTON, Feb. 15, 2018