Instead of passing a 2018 spending bill with a "clean Dream act," lawmakers are expected to offer a bill that would provide a full year's worth of defense spending but only fund non-defense until January 19, USA Today reported.
"While I am disappointed we were unable to find a solution before the end of the year, this is not a partisan issue and I am confident we will reach an agreement for DACA recipients early next year," Rep. David Valadao told the San Francisco Chronicle.
But not everyone is packing up and putting off the fight for immigration reform.
Speaking to Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear, Angie Kim, an immigrant rights activist and community organizer with the MinKwon Center for Community Action, says that this is the time for politicians to ditch deal talks and "come to a decision to pass a clean Dream Act."
"This is no longer the time to be sitting down for meetings and discussions," says Kim. "This is time for action."
"President [Barack] Obama did not wake up one day and feel extremely empathetic for the Dreamers and decide to issue the DACA program… it was the communities, the undocumented families, the Dreamers that came together and held our own political party leaders accountable," she added.
Kim, who is also a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, called the continued move to delay and push back the road to permanent status for immigrants "the most inhumane, cruel, nonsensical thing that the government can do."
"There's no deal because, basically, on the part of the Republicans they don't want immigrants in the US, especially not from third world nations," Gutierrez told show hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou. "On the part of the Democrats, they have a very ambivalent attitude toward immigrants because they have to balance the interests of interest groups."
"I think that everybody is beginning to develop a sense that we're just being used and that the so-called Latino vote is only used for the Democratic Party's benefit and not really to benefit the best interest of the Latino community vis-a-vis immigration reform," added Gutierrez.
This is a point the executive director isn't alone on. Several demonstrations and sit-ins have been initiated to push lawmakers who once claimed to support undocumented immigrants to stick to their promises.
"This is not just a fight about immigration reform, but also human rights. This is about what America stands for and we are here to fight," Kim added.
The DACA program, which was an executive order signed by former President Barack Obama in 2012 to offer a conditional green card status to undocumented immigrants, is scheduled to end on March 6, 2018. Unless lawmakers come to a decision before the deadline, thousands of program recipients will become eligible for deportation.
