An unexpected announcement of an agreement between top Democrats and President Trump, a quick reversal from the White House, a government shutdown, and a meeting where Trump reportedly described particular countries using vulgar language.
All of these major news stories (and others) have centered around immigration — and more specifically, Washington's inability to agree on what to do as President Trump's deadline to end the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (or DACA) policy fast approaches.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has put a deadline of sorts on the table for Feb. 8 to encourage Congress to come to an agreement, but there's been little progress on that front.
It's not for a lack of ideas. A bipartisan group of senators, led by Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois, released a framework in January for the "Immigration Reform Act of 2018." The plan, which hasn't been formally introduced in Congress, has been dubbed "Graham-Durbin" in policy debates. Meanwhile, the White House has released its own four-pillar framework.
Neither of those plans are very detailed, but it's clear that they both would constitute major overhauls to the current immigration system. Here is a look at how they compare to each other, as well as how they compare to the last major attempt at immigration reform, the 2013 "Gang of Eight" bill that passed the Senate overwhelmingly, but was never taken up by the House.
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