Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said he would introduce legislation Tuesday aimed at resolving the growing problem of immigrant family separation at the border.
Speaking on Fox News, Meadows said the bill won’t get into other issues like funding for President Trump’s border wall or language to protect “Dreamers.”
Republicans and Democrats have been fighting for months over how to address those issues, and have gotten no where legislatively. But Meadows’ new approach could let Congress put that fight on the back burner for now, and address a problem that many Republicans fear could hurt them in the midterm elections.
[White House: Democrats are turning family separation into an ’emotional issue’ for midterm advantage]
“We’re going to introduce later today a piece of legislation that actually is more narrow than the two pieces that the president will be talking about with members of Congress this afternoon,” said Meadows, who chairs the conservative House Freedom Caucus. “What it does, it deals with this issue that we’re having at the border with the separation of children from their parents.”
Trump meets with Republican lawmakers late Tuesday to talk about two immigration bills: one from House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., which was gaining support on Monday, and a tougher version from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.
Both of those bills try to deal with family separation, but it’s not clear either can pass the House. Even if they can, they would likely stall in the Senate, and Meadows said his standalone bill could be a way forward if the two broader GOP bills fail.
“Hopefully we can get both Democrats and Republicans to come together and actually solve this problem,” he said. “We’ve shared that with the administration, also shared it with our leadership, so hopefully it provides a path forward if the other two bills that we have do not go anywhere.”
Meadows didn’t explain the details of his bill, but the Trump administration has said a federal court ruling prevents the Department of Homeland Security from detaining immigrant families together after 20 days. Officials have said after that, children must be moved to an approved facility, while the law says the immigrant adults must be prosecuted for entering the country illegally.
