Pay for my border wall and I’ll let ‘Dreamer’ migrants stay, Trump tells Congress
US president’s proposal to ram through hard-line policies prompts outrage among Democrats
DONALD TRUMP has demanded funding for his proposed border wall and other hard-line immigration polices in exchange for allowing 800,000 illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children to avoid deportation.
Mr Trump was accused by Democrats of reneging on a deal last month to protect the so-called “Dreamers”, many of whom no longer have any connection to the countries where they were born.
The president sent to Congress a list of his priorities that would need to feature in any legislation designed to allow the Dreamers to stay.
But Democrats said it went “far beyond what is reasonable” and threatened to derail any proposed law. It remained unclear whether Mr Trump’s demands might be negotiable, but the row also looked set to undermine wider efforts he has made toward wooing Democrat support on several fronts, including healthcare and tax reform.
Mr Trump’s list included funding for the border wall and overhauling the green-card system, limiting them to spouses and minor children of US citizens in order to end so-called “chain migration”.
He also demanded support for hiring an extra 10,000 immigration enforcement officers, 370 immigration judges and more than 1,000 immigration lawyers, a speeding up of deportations, and a crackdown on unaccompanied children currently entering the country.
The Dreamers were protected and given the right to work under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an amnesty introduced by President Barack Obama.
That was scrapped last month by the Trump administration but the President gave Congress six months to come up with a new law to protect them.
At the time Mr Trump indicated he wanted a solution that allowed the Dreamers to stay, saying: “I have a love for these people.”
Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives, met with Mr Trump at the White House last month and said they had a “very productive” discussion, agreeing to “enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly” and work out border security measures that were “acceptable to both sides”.
But in a new letter to Congress, Mr Trump said his list “must be included as part of any legislation addressing the status of DACA recipients”.
In a joint statement the Democrat leaders said: “This proposal fails to represent any attempt at compromise.
“The list includes the wall, which was explicitly ruled out of the negotiations. If the President was serious about protecting the Dreamers, his staff has not made a good-faith effort to do so.”