Trump will extend DACA if Congress doesn't act, Republican senator says

Sen. James Lankford on Trump and DACA
(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

President Trump's March 5 deadline for ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) immigration program isn't etched in stone, and Trump says he's willing to "give it some more time" if Congress doesn't step in to help the DREAMers first, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said outside a town hall event in Tulsa on Thursday night. "The president's comment to me," he said, "was that, 'We put a six-month deadline out there. Let's work it out. If we can't get it worked out in six months, we'll give it some more time, but we've got to get this worked out legislatively.'" A Lankford spokesman tells The Washington Post that Trump made the comments in a phone call with the senator last month.

Democrats and some Republicans are pushing for a vote on the DREAM Act, and Lankford is offering a more conservative alternative called the SUCCEED Act that offers young undocumented immigrants a 15-year path to citizenship but bars them from pulling their parents along. "I think we'll be actually voting on something like this in January or February," Lankford said. "These are kids that have grown up here. I'm not interested in deporting them and kicking them out. But I'm also not interested in them ending up in a limbo status on this." A bipartisan deal looked plausible until Trump released a list of hardline demands on Sunday night.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.