Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that the $25 billion for a U.S.-Mexico border wall and other infrastructure in President Trump’s immigration proposal can be spent wisely, and that he doesn’t envision constructing a bona fide 1,900-mile wall.
Mr. Graham said lawmakers included some $42 billion for border security in a 2013 immigration bill the U.S. Senate passed, so the $25 billion for a border wall and infrastructure in Mr. Trump’s proposal isn’t an “outrageous” number.
“You don’t need $25 billion for a wall. You need wall systems, you need roads … you need to fix old fencing,” the South Carolina Republican said on ABC’s “This Week.” “So we’re not going to build a 1,900-mile wall, but $25 billion can be spent wisely.”
“We’re not going to build a wall in places it shouldn’t go,” he said. – READ MORE
[give_form id=”79809″] [divider][/divider]The White House appears to have banned Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) from participating in immigration reform negotiations due to a recent strain between Graham and the Trump administration, as well as other Republicans in the House and Senate.
Tensions first rose when Graham advocated for an immigration deal that failed to address President Donald Trump’s main concerns regarding chain migration and border security alongside Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). The situation worsened when the Republican senator criticized chief of staff John Kelly as never having “closed a deal before, politically” and top policy adviser Stephen Miller as being an “outlier” on immigration, according to The Washington Examiner.
“It is almost appalling to me that you have a senator that isn’t stepping up, doing the right thing,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in an interview with Fox News on Monday. “Look, we want to make a deal on DACA. We want to do these things. And the fact that he’s not part of the conversation to help move that ball forward and is instead attacking individual members of the president’s staff, I think, shows … they’re going to blame people for their own failures. And I think it’s time that they stop playing political games, come to the table, get serious and do their jobs.”
A GOP aide told the Examiner that allowing Graham to take part in immigration discussions could ruin the chances of any deal being reached on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. – READ MORE
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