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Lankford Working on Bill to Clarify DACA Recipients' Status

Lankford's office

Oklahoma U.S. Senator James Lankford is working on a bill to clarify the status of undocumented immigrants covered by the policy known as DACA.

Lankford told CNN he’s working with North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis on the legislation, but there are no specifics right now.

"We're not working through the details yet. We're working through our own conference," Lankford told Jake Tapper. "I would tell you he and I have worked on it for awhile. He's on the Judiciary Committee. I'm on the Homeland Security Committee, and so we're bringing that expertise to it. We're working with out colleagues, both Republican and Democrat, in order to get a good, bipartisan agreement that we feel like would actually pass."

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy instituted by President Barack Obama prevents undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from being deported for being here illegally. President Donald Trump has said he’s ending DACA in six months.

Lankford said hundreds of thousands of people covered by DACA need the issue resolved before then.

"This is one of those issues that, for a very long time has hung out there, and until this is resolved, you can't move on to a lot of other issues," Lankford said. "So, these kids and these individuals — in my state, there are 7,000 of them — need to have some kind of resolution."

After a Wednesday dinner at the White House, it’s unclear whether Trump and leading congressional Democrats struck a deal on DACA and whether Trump’s border wall is part of it.

Lankford said while Congress should act now on DACA, the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t answered enough questions about the border wall.

"They need to be resolved what they're asking for so Congress will know what they're actually funding. So, we're not ready for that at this point. We are ready to be able to deal with DACA. We are ready to be able to deal with lots of other issues of border security," Lankford said.

Matt Trotter joined KWGS as a reporter in 2013. Before coming to Public Radio Tulsa, he was the investigative producer at KJRH. His freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC and CNN.