Ryan: DACA fix will be separate from spending bill

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Tuesday that lawmakers are not planning on wrapping legislative relief for young immigrants brought to the country without legal permission as children into an end-of-year spending bill.

Asked by Fox News’s Bret Baier in a town hall-style interview whether the spending bill would include measures to codify protections for beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Ryan said lawmakers plan to consider the matters separately.

“No, we’re planning on doing that separately,” Ryan told Baier. Asked to clarify, Ryan replied: “We’re planning on keeping that separate from spending.”

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DACA, an Obama-era program, has temporarily shielded certain young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children. President Trump moved in September to end the program, but gave Congress a six-month window to take action and enshrine DACA’s protections into law.

The last day for beneficiaries to apply for DACA was Oct. 5, while those whose permits end on March 6, 2018, or later will see their DACA benefits end at that time unless they previously applied for renewal.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have called for a legislative fix for DACA by the end of the year, a move that remains uncertain despite signs of bipartisan cooperation earlier this year.

Ryan has pushed back against attempts to tie DACA to other legislative priorities this year, saying earlier this month that it should be “considered separately” from end-of-year deadlines.