Margaret Talev: The White House at This Juncture Is Not Looking To Make Any of the DACA or TPS Changes Permanent

EXCERPT:

TALEV: "I spent the weekend at the White House. I was there for the President’s remarks on Saturday and the briefing from several top officials afterward and conversations then and throughout the rest of the weekend, have been told very clearly that while there is some wiggle room to negotiate on these immigration proposals, both DACA and TPS, the White House at this juncture is not looking at any negotiation that would make any of these changes permanent, certainly not for citizenship. At this point, not for residency either. So I think the question about the shutdown is, there are two ways to resolve it. One is by negotiating some sort of a border deal and the other is by detaching it from the negotiations over immigration and just re-opening the government. At this point, the White House is prepared to stretch this out a little bit longer, have the federal workers miss another paycheck and try to blame Democrats. If that doesn’t work and there is still an impasse, the State of the Union is supposed to be a week away, if that is still happening. The debt limit becomes an issue starting in March and certainly ramping up throughout the summer. So there are real questions as to how long this can actually go on."