June 19 (UPI) — President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Republicans at the Capitol Tuesday to discuss immigration bills headed for votes in the House amid outcry over the separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Neither bill directly calls for the end of the family separation, which is part of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. The bills do, however, seek a fix.
Republicans included a provision in the more moderate bill, introduced by House Speaker Paul Ryan, to allow families to stay together at detention centers.
“We fix it in this bill,” Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., told CNN. “We want to keep parents with their children.”
Ryan’s bill also offers a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who receive protection under the DACA program.
A more conservative bill authored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., doesn’t expressly call for the end to family separations, but he told NPR he favors changing the law to keep families together.
“We’re hard at work on language right now to take care of this problem so that children can remain with their parents,” Goodlatte said.
His bill also seeks to end family-based “chain migration,” authorizes construction of a border wall, adds Border Patrol agents and creates an agricultural guest worker program.
The 293-page bill, titled “The Border Security and Immigration Reform Act,” would also provide a six-year renewable status protecting anyone brought to the country illegally as a child before 2007, which is an expansion of the DACA program.
Goodlatte, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said he would back either bill.
Trump is scheduled to meet with Republican House lawmakers late Tuesday, where the issue of family separation will be discussed. The administration has not yet signaled a willingness to change the policy.
U.S. immigration officials have so far separated about 2,000 children from their parents.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced a bill to prevent separations. It would only allow children to be separated if they are being trafficked or abused.
On Monday, a bipartisan group of 75 former U.S. attorneys called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to end to the practice.
The attorneys called separating migrant families “dangerous, expensive, and inconsistent with the values of the institution in which we served.”
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