As it stands with everything that Congress has to do in September, there is no way that lawmakers are going to prioritize immigration reform while they're dealing with the debt ceiling and Hurricane Harvey relief. The discussion over Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) has recently been forced into the debate with the Trump administration announcing on Tuesday that they would be revoking the program. As reported, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has also hinted at getting rid of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program.

Pressure on Congress, intimidation on immigrants

The Trump administration's actions against programs that protect or encourage immigrants to come to the United States has immigration rights advocates rising up and demanding that Congress step in. From the day Jeff Sessions of the Justice Department made the announcement, Congress was given six-months to find a solution for the DACA participants. The pressure is certainly on Congress, however, as DHS has told those recipients to start preparing to leave the country.

The administration's urgency on the matter has alarmed DREAMers who are supposed to be protected under the DACA program and are trying to figure out what to do next. There is no doubt that immigrants, in general, are in a panic.

Soon after the announcement on Tuesday, it was suggested that because DHS has the names, addresses, phone numbers and all information on who is registered under the DACA program, DREAMers feared they could be raided and deported at any moment. On Thursday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asked President Trump to reassure DREAMers that they have nothing to fear and he immediately followed through on Twitter.

Congress won't act, yet

While DHS has said that they would only be looking for criminals, the department has already used guarded language to suggest that a raid might not be a thing of fantasy.

With a six-month timeline and Congress already saying that they will look at the program later, House Speaker Paul Ryan seemed to establish on Wednesday, very little hope to protect the program. While Ryan did acknowledge the human issues over what revoking the program would mean, he said that DACA was an example of a larger problem which is to not protect America's borders.

Some effort for immigration among Republicans?

So far, Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Penn) said that they were looking to do DACA and border security funding together in one bill. Rep. Dent was referring to a that would be put forward by Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) that promised to permanently fix the DACA problem for DREAMers. But, it's hard to know now if bundling it with border security is wise.

This is because President Trump had already threatened to force a government shutdown if he didn't get funding for his border wall, and therefore, might not get his signature. In the meantime, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is reportedly trying to get the President to allow Venezuelans to stay in the U.S. under the TPS program.

Sen. Dick Durban (D-Ill) who is the Senate Minority Whip, is one of the lawmakers who seem rather optimistic in, not only a bipartisan deal for funding the government but one for the DREAM act. The DREAM act is one of several immigration proposals that Republicans and Democrats are putting forward which rejected earlier this year by the administration. Durban was overwhelmingly optimistic about the DREAM Act's chances of getting passed this year. Here is his interview from Thursday's airing of PBS Newshour.
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