releases: https://www.tillis.senate.gov//public/index.cfm/thom-in-the-news?ContentRecord_id=E848484E-BEB5-4B97-BDD1-064BAA131E90
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://www.tillis.senate.gov//public/index.cfm/thom-in-the-news?ContentRecord_id=E848484E-BEB5-4B97-BDD1-064BAA131E90 | On DACA, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis wants to find middle-ground | 2017-12-13 | 2017 | 2017-12 | Republican | House | NC | Thom Tillis | T000476 | www.tillis.senate.gov | legacy | On many policy issues, GOP Sen. Thom Tillis is a reliable red vote. But onimmigration, Tillis is trying to find purple. Despite voting with President Trumps agenda 96% of the time,according to the political tracking website FiveThirtyEight, the North Carolina senator has emerged as one of the key lawmakers working across the aisle to compromise on immigration legislation. A key issue Tillis is trying to find consensus on between Democrats and Republicans is providing legal protections to the nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. Former President Obama issued an executive order that shielded them from deportation throughthe Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. President Trump reversed the order in September but gave Congress six months to find a solution.There is bipartisan agreement that protections need to continue for DACA recipients, also known as DREAMers, but the details arestill being debated. Tillis is trying to find the sweet spot. The North Carolina Republican is part of a group of lawmakers who have been negotiating on how to pair legal protections for the Dreamers with enough increased border security to satisfy Republicans, but not be too extreme as to turn off Democrats. Democratic votes will be needed to pass any bill in the Senate where most legislation requires 60 votes and Republicans hold a narrow 52-48 majority. That margin will narrow even more when newly elected Democrat Doug Jones of Alabama takes his Senate seat sometime in January. You need to have that balance between what I think is a compassionate, sustainable solution for the DACA population but also address the legitimate concerns about border security and about interior enforcement that will make it less likely that well be having to have another DACA solution, 10 years from now or 12 years from now, Tillis told USA TODAY at an interview in his office last week.In the past year, illegal border crossings have declined. He said that hes willing to block out demands from the far rightof his party as long as Democrats are willing to do the same for the far left. The far-right who think anything less than mass deportation is unacceptable, were not looking for their support," Tillis said. And the far-leftanybody who thinks anything other than open borders and, you know, just a pathway (into the U.S.) without any sense of securing our borders, those are two voices that are really not productive voices. What's always struck me about Sen Tillis is that he is a principled pragmatic, and what I mean by that is he's going to adhere to his conservative principles but he wants to get things done, said Ali Noorani, who heads the National Immigration Forum, a group which had Tillis as their keynote speaker this fall. National Immigration Forumtries to convince conservatives that being pro-immigration is beneficial and the group sees Tillis as a positive spokesman in that effort. The group is advocating strongly for legal protections for DREAMers before the end of the year. Read the full story HERE. ### | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |