Sen. Manchin: ‘Gut tells me’ Trump wants to get DACA done

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on Wednesday he believes President Trump wants to find a solution to help “Dreamers” who could face deportation because of Trump’s decision to end an Obama-era program sheltering them.

“My gut tells me the president wants to get this done,” Manchin told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on “New Day.” 

“I can tell you sincerely he believes these children need a pathway forward. He’s sympathetic towards that. Now, there might be people around him that aren’t quite as sympathetic as he is,” he said. 

{mosads}Trump met with Manchin and his fellow red-state Democrat Sen. Doug Jones (Ala.) on Monday to talk about a path forward on immigration. 

The talks center on legislation to replace the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allows certain immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children to work and go to school here. Border security measures and additional reforms to the immigration system are also a part of the talks.

A fight over the program contributed to last weekend’s government shutdown, which ended on Monday. 

Manchin and Jones were two of the five Democrats who broke with their leaders and voted for a House spending bill that would have kept the government open but did nothing on the DACA issue. 

The two senators were also part of a larger group of centrists who worked over the weekend to end the shutdown.  

Trump moved to end the program last year unless Congress was able to come up with a fix by March of 2018.