Moderate Republicans make last-ditch DACA effort

President Donald Trump tried to force Congress to fix the country’s immigration system last year when he announced he would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

But before the March deadline that could have triggered deportation proceedings against illegal immigrants brought to the country as children, a federal judge ordered the program to remain in place, taking pressure off lawmakers to find a legislative solution to the problem.

Now, nearly two dozen Republican representatives are attempting to reapply the pressure with a rarely used parliamentary procedure known as a discharge petition. They hope to heave responsibility onto two people they blame for holding up the process, despite their plans to retire after this term: House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.

Ryan agreed in February to encourage votes for Goodlatte’s very conservative immigration solution but couldn’t find enough support for it. So why hasn’t Congress brought something else to the floor yet?

That’s what Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., wants to know. Together with other moderate Republicans, he’s using the discharge petition to force a floor vote on four proposals. The highest vote-getter would advance to the Senate. Goodlatte’s conservative bill would get the first vote. The next two would be proposals that Goodlatte has so far refused to hold hearings on, and the final option would be a solution of the speaker’s choosing.

The petition requires 218 votes to pass. All 193 Democrats reportedly have committed their support, should the petition win backing from 25 Republicans. As of Thursday, 22 Republicans have signed on.

In response to questions about the petition, Goodlatte’s office referred me to a Judiciary Committee spokeswoman, who referred me to a statement: “The best way to address the issues pertaining to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and provide meaningful reform to restore the integrity of our immigration system is not through a discharge petition. This discharge petition would lead to an unbalanced approach and is likely to ignore the tough issues that need to be addressed to prevent parents from bringing their children to the United States illegally in the future.”

As chairman, Goodlatte could call hearings on any of the bills in the petition to allow them to move through the normal legislative process, but he hasn’t.

“My job is to find 218 votes,” he told Politico in March, in reference to his refusal to change his own bill to attract more moderates.

In the meantime, DACA participants are increasingly frustrated with Washington. Adrian Escarate, now 29, was just 3 years old when his mother brought him from Chile to Miami. Despite earning a college degree on a tennis scholarship, Escarate was blocked from getting a work permit—and therefore a job—until DACA. When he started working as a tennis coach, one of his first students ended up being Curbelo.

The Miami native brought Escarate to Washington for this year’s State of the Union address, where he met the House speaker. “Ryan told me to my face that they would get something done,” Escarate said. “But now he doesn’t back the petition. I feel like he lied to my face.”

Ryan implied last week a “queen of the hill” vote triggered by the discharge petition would just cause a spectacle on the floor: “What I don’t want to do is have a process that just ends up with a veto. We actually want to solve the DACA problem.” On Wednesday, Ryan warned House GOP members not to support the petition.

Curbelo brushed off Ryan’s criticism, saying he’s not interested in a spectacle. He simply want to find a bipartisan DACA solution—as the president asked Congress to do.

Deal-maker in chief speaks Kim Jong Un’s language

President Donald Trump, author of The Art of the Deal, will on June 12 attempt the deal of a lifetime when he meets with Kim Jong Un to discuss North Korea’s nuclear program. Trump may be one of the few people in the world best positioned to speak Kim’s language.

Above all else, Kim craves worldwide respect and legitimacy, analysts say. Born to one of his father’s mistresses, Kim secured his place as North Korea’s top leader in part by having other family members assassinated. Past sitting U.S. presidents hesitated even to meet with him or his father or grandfather because they didn’t want to give the appearance of stamping their approval on the North Korean regime. President George W. Bush named North Korea part of the “axis of evil,” and President Barack Obama compared Kim to a baby banging a spoon on a table. The only American who would meet with Kim, it seemed, was an equally volatile and erratic professional basketball player, Dennis Rodman.

Scott Snyder, a North Korea expert with the Council on Foreign Relations, told me Trump uses his own personal brand of unpredictability as an asset. With it, he maximizes uncertainty in a way former, on-message presidents would never do—and in a way analysts would never recommend. Snyder noted Hillary Clinton likely would have approached North Korea using pressure tactics and diplomatic contacts built over time, as she did to lay groundwork for the Iran nuclear deal as secretary of state.

But Trump so strongly prefers a hands-on approach that he famously fires anyone who strays from absolute loyalty to his agenda.

“Normally we think of our presidents as closers. But in this case, Trump is going to open a relationship,” Snyder said, noting the president is uniquely positioned to bridge the structural disconnect between the United States and North Korea. Here, layers of bureaucracy surround top-level executives. There, nobody can make a decision but the dictator. In his usual style, Trump wants to bypass all those bureaucratic layers by going straight to Kim—just what both of them prefer.

“He’s adopting the approach that is best suited to the North Korean regime,” Snyder said.

And as businessmen do, each wants to come to the table from a position of strength, which explains this week’s North Korean threats to pull out of the talks, Snyder said. Using military exercises as the excuse, he theorizes, Kim really is reacting to recent U.S. comments about North Korea folding under sanctions. Not to be outdone, Trump responded with more caginess about whether or not the two would still meet. But according to Snyder, the last thing Kim would ever do is cancel a meeting he has craved for decades. —L.F.

Trump, McConnell appoint conservatives to religious liberty commission

Tony Perkins, best known for his advocacy on marriage and family issues in the United States, will spend the next two years focusing on international religious freedom. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Tuesday appointed the Family Research Council president to serve on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Perkins, who will continue his work at FRC, will fill one of eight seats on the commission coming vacant this week.

Congressional leaders are responsible for filling five of those seats. Last month, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., appointed Gayle Manchin to one vacant position, a decision religious liberty advocates questioned due to her lack of experience. Manchin is the wife of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who faces a tough reelection fight in November.

Also on Tuesday, President Donald Trump appointed three other commission members, all strong conservative supporters: former Family Research Council president Gary Bauer, Patriot Voices executive director Nadine Maenza, and Trump evangelical adviser Johnnie Moore.

USCIRF is an independent commission tasked with making policy recommendations to the president, State Department, and Congress. —Leigh Jones

Deportation bus backfires?

A Republican gubernatorial candidate in Georgia has promised to pack a “deportation bus” full of illegal immigrants and drive them to Mexico, if voters back him in the state’s primary on May 22.

In a YouTube video posted Tuesday, Michael Williams, a former Trump campaign co-chairman, shows off a gray bus painted with slogans like “Fill this bus with illegals. Vote Michael Williams,” and “Murderers, rapists, kidnappers, child molestors, and other criminals on board.” The bus also features a large seal with an eagle and a brick wall, clearly meant to emulate the presidential emblem.

If Williams is trying to win voters by mimicking President Donald Trump, known for his inflammatory rhetoric on immigration, the effort may backfire. A January poll by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found Trump’s approval rating at just 36.7 percent in the state. But Williams isn’t the only Georgia gubernatorial hopeful harping on immigration issues. In a different ad, Brian Kemp offers to round up “criminal illegal aliens” in his truck and “take them home myself.”

Williams later told NPR he doesn’t want vigilantes trying to take the law into their own hands, and that only his campaign staff would ride the bus. On Wednesday, YouTube briefly removed the ad, calling it hate speech. As of Thursday, the campaign had already canceled one stop on its planned tour due to protests, and the bus appears to have broken down on the road. —L.F.