White House officials have canceled an upcoming meeting to brief Republican and Democratic lawmakers on the details of the administration's immigration proposal, a spokesman for Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Friday.
"Well, they scheduled the meeting to brief the Four Whips group on their immigration plan," Durbin spokesman Ben Marter told the Washington Examiner. "The [White House] said that 'given the rollout yesterday' they are holding off for now, but I note that we haven’t received a single page of their plan except through news reports."
The meeting, Marter said in a tweet on Friday, was scheduled for Monday and would have included Durbin, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Reps. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
But a GOP source familiar with the situation said the White House had never actually finalized a time for the meeting next week, and had only made attempts to schedule the briefing. That source said Durbin's office even rejected one of the meeting times proposed by White House aides, who never ended up scheduling the prospective sit-down due to conflicting schedules.
“After engineering an embarrassing government shutdown, Sen. Durbin is now trying to pick a fight over meeting times," the GOP source said. "We hope he’ll get serious soon — these young adults facing uncertainty across the country deserve better.”
Durbin's spokesman said White House chief of staff John Kelly and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen had been slated to lay out the administration's legislative framework for an immigration deal on Monday. The White House said this week that officials would release the framework publicly on Monday as well.
But although senior White House aides shared details of their plan with reporters on Thursday, Marter said the administration did not share any of those details with Durbin.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., rejected the framework described to reporters this week, arguing on Friday that the plan "flies in the face of what most Americans believe."
President Trump's plan would grant a pathway to citizenship for the 1.8 million undocumented immigrants who are eligible for the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, but would impose new limitations on family-based immigration and significantly alter the diversity visa lottery program. The Trump administration announced in September that it would end the Obama-era DACA program by March 5, forcing Congress to legislate an alternative.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the alleged cancellation of Monday's meeting.