Trump embraces role as negotiator in chief on immigration issues

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump took command of a high-profile White House meeting on immigration yesterday, coaxing Republican and Democratic lawmakers toward a compromise on the fate of undocumented migrants who came to the United States as children.

Trump also signaled he was open to more comprehensive immigration reform to address millions of other undocumented people living in the shadows, but did not give ground to Democrats over his plans for a border wall.

"It should be a bill of love," Trump said of a measure under negotiation that would protect hundreds of thousands of so-called "Dreamers" from deportation.

"But it also has to be a bill where we're able to secure our border. Drugs are pouring into our country at a record pace. A lot of people are coming in that we can't have," Trump added, urging lawmakers to "put country before party" and strike a quick solution.

Trump, seated at a long table with some two dozen lawmakers from the House and Senate, presided over the bipartisan talks, allowing journalists rare access to nearly an hour of the meeting.

The president said he would "take the heat" politically if lawmakers were to move toward broader action that would provide a pathway to citizenship for about 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

"You are not that far away from comprehensive immigration reform," he told Senator Lindsey Graham, after the Republican lawmaker floated the idea of more sweeping legislation.

"You created an opportunity here, Mr President, and you need to close the deal," Graham told him as TV cameras rolled.

Trump's position appeared at odds with his 2016 campaign, when his platform focused largely on border security and immigration curtailment, and many of his core supporters raged at the prospect of legalizing millions of undocumented immigrants.