As the nation’s undocumented youth and their allies converge this week in Washington D.C., to call for Democrats and Republicans to vote no on a federal spending bill unless there is a real solution to protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients who are losing their status daily, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday that many prominent Democrats won’t even fight for this.
Here are the names of those Democrats who the Post got on record:
Senator Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat: “We’ve got to get it done, but I’m not drawing a line in the sand that it has to be this week versus two weeks from now.”
Senator Chuck Schumer, New York Democrat and Senate Minority Leader: “Democrats will do everything we can to prevent President Trump’s terribly wrong order from becoming reality.”
Senator Tim Kaine, Virginia Democrat: “I will exercise every bit of leverage I can for the Dream Act, but if there is a vote that would lead to a shutdown, that’s where I draw the line.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat and House Minority Leader: She didn’t say anything new this week, but did say this in October, “We have to do it before Christmas. That’s just the way it is.”
The Post also said that “other Democrats facing similar head winds echoed that sentiment, including Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.). Trump won those states by 42 and 19 percentage points, respectively.”
Also, even the Senate’s only Latina senator was still undecided. As the Post reports, “About a dozen DACA recipients from Texas camped out on Monday in the lobby of the office of Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), the only female Hispanic senator. She supports the Dream Act but has not said whether she would vote against a spending bill.”
