Donald Trump is Blaming the Democrats Again for Not Passing a DACA Bill. But It’s Not That Simple

President Donald Trump said Friday that he is considering a veto of a $1.3 trillion spending deal because it does not address the fate of the nearly 700,000 recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program or a border wall.

The 2,000-plus page omnibus bill does not address the so-called Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. Though it does include $1.6 billion for border security, including some spending for “border barrier planning and design,” that amount is far short of the $25 billion Trump has said he wants.

President Trump ended the DACA program last September and has since outlined strict pillars he wants addressed in any deal to offer deportation protections, or a path to citizenship, for the population of immigrants who have and would benefit from it. Those pillars have stymied Congressional efforts to fix DACA, even as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have worked to find a compromise.

During an early round of negotiations, Trump told lawmakers he would work with them on a “bill of love,” only to throw cold water on plans that didn’t include his wants, including cuts to family-based migration and the diversity visa lottery program.

There were reports that the White House and congressional leaders were discussing a plan to push through a short-term extension of the DACA program that was tied to border funding, but no such plan was included in the omnibus package.

As the spending deadline rapidly approached, the White House had proposed tying $25 billion in wall funding to a three-year extension of DACA. Democrats, however, could not agree to that plan because it did not include a path to citizenship for the nearly 1.8 million people who are considered Dreamers, according to the Washington Post.

The Post reports that Democrats proposed tying the $25 billion in border funding to a path to citizenship for the entire Dreamer population, but the White House would not agree to protecting all 1.8 million without broader immigration changes.

Trump has lashed out at Democrats on Twitter as a result of the impasse.