House Democrats choose DACA over other immigration priorities in lame-duck session

House Democrats are preparing a legislative sprint to send immigration reforms to the Senate before they give up their majority in the lower chamber next year.

The lame-duck push is focusing on a bill to protect so-called Dreamers, beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The decision, announced by House Democratic leaders during a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning in the Capitol, comes just a week after the midterm elections, when both parties were vying for a growing share of Hispanic voters.

The choice to target DACA is itself a recognition that the lame-duck session is unlikely to yield structural change to the country’s broken immigration system.

The DACA bill is separate from a House-passed bill to grant a path to citizenship to millions of farmworkers and a broader immigration proposal to implement a rolling registry — a sort of statute of limitations on illegal entry — for immigrants.

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