Trump asks senators to not support 'Band-Aid' immigration bills

President Trump on Wednesday encouraged senators to rally behind comprehensive immigration reform and not support narrow "Band-Aid" bills. In a statement, the president indicated he is partial to a bill proposed by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that reduces legal immigration, ends the visa lottery, funds border security, and creates a path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, also known as DREAMers.

One of the "Band-Aid" bills Trump was referring to is a bipartisan proposal to exchange amplified funding for border security for protections for the DREAMers. The president believes such compromises are, at best, temporary solutions. His preferred bill, however, is unpopular with the Democratic minority and thus unlikely to pass the Senate with 60 votes, CNN says.

A White House official told The Washington Post that the president feels that he has already compromised enough with Democrats on immigration by supporting a path to citizenship for DREAMers. "We went as far as we could in that direction," the unnamed aide said, "but any more and the House would never take up the bill and the president would not be able to sign it."

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But even some of the president's allies in the Senate think he's making a mistake by drawing such a hard line. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told The New York Times that vetoing a bipartisan immigration bill would amount to failure. "Then you'll have three presidents who failed [to pass immigration reform]," Graham said." You'll have Obama, Bush, and Trump."