Trump to defer to lawmakers on immigration bill
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump met with a bipartisan group of Congress members at the White House on Tuesday in an effort to revive stalled talks over immigration, urging lawmakers to pass a “bill of love” to protect some undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Trump expressed confidence that a deal over the fate of the “Dreamers” — immigrants who arrived in the country illegally as children — was within reach ahead of a March 5 deadline he set before work permits issued under an Obama-era program to nearly 700,000 begin to expire en masse. The president reiterated his demands for border wall funding and curbs to some legal immigration programs, but said he would defer to lawmakers to hammer out the details and would sign whatever bill they put in front of him.
“I really do believe Democrat and Republican, the people sitting in this room, really want to get something done,” Trump said.
“My position is going to be what the people in this room come up with,” he added. “I have a lot of respect for people on both sides. What I approve will be very much reliant on what people in this room come to me with. If they come to me with things I’m not in love with, I’m going to do it.”
Lawmakers in both parties have said they are waiting for the Trump White House to specify its demands before the negotiations can move forward. Democrats and some moderate Republicans have resisted funding a border wall at a time when illegal immigration over the Mexico border is at record lows.
In an unusual meeting, Trump allowed reporters to remain in the Cabinet Room for more than 50 minutes as he and the Congress members laid out their bargaining positions. Trump challenged the group to “put country before party” to get a deal done.
“Lives are hanging in the balance. We’ve got the time to do it,” said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., an original sponsor of legislation to legalize “Dreamers.”
During the meeting, Trump also addressed other news, saying he believed a presidential run by media mogul Oprah Winfrey would be fun, but predicting she would ultimately choose to forgo a White House bid, despite some enthusiasm among Democrats after she gave a rousing speech at the Golden Globe Awards this week.
“I don’t think she’s gonna run,” Trump said, responding to a question from a reporter. “I know her very well.”
Trump announced in September his plans to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but he gave lawmakers a six-month window to pass a legislative deal before the temporary work permits begin to expire at a rate of nearly 1,000 per day. (About 122 immigrants a day already are losing their work permits after failing to renew their applications last fall.)
But negotiators have been at an impasse over how to proceed. Democrats and some moderate Republicans are eyeing a Jan. 19 deadline for a must-pass government spending deal as leverage to get a deal done on DACA. But the talks are deadlocked over Trump’s demands for the wall and cuts to legal immigration, including ending a diversity visa lottery and what the president calls “chain migration,” the practice of Americans sponsoring extended family members for green cards.
Democrats have balked at accepting major new border security provisions, saying the administration’s call for $18 billion in funding for hundreds of miles of a border wall is costly and unnecessary at a time when illegal immigration levels have plummeted.
Lawmakers from both parties expressed confidence that the meeting had been productive and said the group had succeeded in narrowing the framework for discussions — yet both sides defined that framework in different terms. Democrats suggested they were open to some border security enhancements, but they emphasized that they agreed with a statement from Trump that broader talks over additional changes to the immigration system must be done after a deal over immigrants is completed.
But Republicans said they expect Democrats to address four areas — border security, the fate of the “Dreamers,” the diversity visa lottery and curbs to “chain migration” — which Trump also has insisted on.