President open to broad deal on immigration
He’d take ‘heat’ for giving illegals path, still wants wall
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday appeared to endorse a sweeping immigration deal that would eventually grant millions of illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship, saying he would be willing to “take the heat” politically for an approach that many of his hard-line supporters have long viewed as unacceptable.
The president made the remarks during an extended meeting with congressional Republicans and Democrats who are weighing a shorter-term agreement that would extend legal status for illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.
Late Tuesday, a federal district judge in California temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s decision in September to end that legal-status program, created by President Barack Obama and called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, while other related lawsuits play out in court.
Earlier, the president reiterated his demands for bor-
der wall funding and curbs to some legal immigration programs, but he 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.”
In backing a broader immigration measure, Trump gave a rare public glimpse of an impulse he has expressed privately to advisers and lawmakers: the desire to preside over a more far-reaching solution to the status of the 11 million foreigners already living and working illegally in the United States. Such action has the potential to alienate the hard-line immigration activists who powered his political rise and helped him win the presidency, many of whom have described it as amnesty for lawbreakers.
“If you want to take it that further step, I’ll take the heat,” Trump told Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who floated the idea during the meeting in the White House Cabinet Room on Tuesday. “You are not that far away from comprehensive immigration reform.”
The White House meeting was extraordinary: an extended negotiating session that was televised by news channels. Trump repeatedly went back to his call for a broad and comprehensive immigration bill, even as Democratic and Republican lawmakers cautioned him of the failures of the past. Some Republicans pointedly said Trump was being too ambitious. Even Democrats worried that more immediate immigration matters might fail to pass with the broader package now on the table.
Previous attempts to enact such a broad, bipartisan immigration compromise, under Obama and President George W. Bush, proved politically impossible. Comprehensive immigration bills passed the Senate in 2006 and in 2013 only to be stymied in the House.
“You created an opportunity here, Mr. President,” Graham said to Trump, “and you need to close the deal.”
The White House said after the meeting that lawmakers had agreed to narrow the scope of the negotiations to four areas: border security, family-based “chain migration,” the visa lottery and the deferred-action policy. Democrats and Republicans planned to resume negotiations today.
MEANING OF THE WALL
Trump said that in pushing for a sweeping immigration overhaul, he supports a twophase approach that would first codify the protections created under the deferred-action program, which he has moved to end by March, and then address other immigrants in the country illegally.
The president said he would insist on the construction of a border security wall as part of an agreement involving young immigrants but that Congress could then pursue a comprehensive immigration overhaul in the second phase of talks.
House Republicans said they planned to introduce legislation today to address border security and the young immigrants. Trump said “it should be a bill of love.”
Two Republicans familiar with the bill said it is expected to include several measures
that Democrats have roundly rejected, such as sanctions for “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said the bill would be a “good foundation” for the bipartisan talks and that more would have to be done after the initial deal is struck.
Democrats have insisted that the deferred-action program, which grants reprieves from deportation and work permits to its beneficiaries, be part of any longer-term agreement to fund the government beyond Jan. 19, when current funding expires.
Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., a leading proponent of codifying the protections, said members of his party would support some border security measures but noted that action to shield recipients from deportation was urgent, given that their grants of legal status will begin expiring in early March.
“Lives are hanging in the balance,” Durbin said. “We’ve got the time to do it.”
The meeting raised questions about how far Trump would push for his wall.
In describing the need for a wall, the president said it didn’t need to be a “2,000-mile wall. We don’t need a wall where you have rivers and mountains and everything else protecting it. But we do need a wall for a fairly good portion.”
Trump has long made that
case, saying even during his campaign that his border wall didn’t need to be continuous, thanks to natural barriers in the landscape. And he has said he would be open to using fencing for some portions as well.
The unusually public meeting laid bare a back-and-forth between the parties more typically confined to private negotiations. At one point, Trump appeared to agree with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., over her call for a “clean” deferred-action bill now with a commitment to pursue a comprehensive immigration overhaul later.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., interjected, saying, “Mr. President, you need to be clear, though,” that legislation involving the deferred-action participants would need to include border security.
Immigration hawks were not happy with Trump’s performance. Bob Dane, executive director of Federation for American Immigration Reform, said the president was
“playing with fire” in the negotiations.
“If Trump capitulates to the Democrats and fails to deliver his campaign promises on immigration, there won’t be any more campaign promises for the GOP to make in the future because the base will inflict a scorched-earth policy in the midterms,” Dane said.
After the meeting, lawmakers from both parties appeared divided over the basic definition of Trump’s demand for a border wall.
Democratic House Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland said his party was opposed to the GOP calls for funding to build the wall — according to the administration’s most recent cost estimate, $18 billion.
“It was clear in the meeting that wall did not mean some structure,” he said of Trump’s remarks, noting the president also mentioned fencing, cameras and other security measures for the border.
Republicans were adamant that Trump’s call “means the wall,” but noted that Trump acknowledged it doesn’t need to cover the entire length of the border because of geographic barriers.