Immigration battle outlined
Trump calls for wall, reforms in deal for DACA.
President WASHINGTON —
Donald Trump has told congressional leaders that his hard-line immigration priorities must be enacted in exchange for extending protection from deportation to hundreds of thousands of young immigrants, many of whom were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
Trump’s list of demands included overhauling the country’s green-card system, a crackdown on unac- companied minors enter- ing the country, and building his promised wall along the southern border.
Many were policies Democrats have said explicitly are off the table and threaten to derail ongoing negotiations over legislation protecting young immigrants known as “Dreamers.” They had been given a reprieve from deportation and the ability to work legally in the country under President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which Trump ended last month.
In a letter to House and Senate leaders released by the White House Sunday, Trump said the priorities were the product of “a bottom-up review of all immigration policies” that he had ordered “to determine what legislative reforms are essen- tial for America’s economic and national security.
“These f i ndings outline reforms that must be included as part of any legislation addressing the status of Deferred Action for Child- hood Arrivals (DACA) recipi- ents,” he wrote, adding that: “Without these reforms, illegal immigration and chain migration, which severely and unfairly burden American workers and taxpayers, will continue without end.”
Trump announced last month that he was ending the DACA program, but he gave Congress six months to come up with a legislative fix before recipients began to lose their status.
He’d also tweeted that if Congress was unwilling to find a fix, he would “revisit this issue!” in six months.
Trump had previously said he wanted a DACA deal to include significant money for border security and eventual funding for his border wall. But the priorities released by the White House went far beyond that.
They included a complete overhaul of the green-card system that would limit family-based green cards to spouses and the minor children of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents as part of an effort to end “chain migration.”
The White House also said it wants to boost fees at bor- der crossings, hire 10,000 more immigration enforce- ment officers, make it eas- ier to deport gang members and unaccompanied children, and overhaul the asylum system. And it wants new measures to crack down on “sanctuary cities,” which don’t share information with federal immigration authorities, among other proposals.
But it remained unclear whether the president considers each of the more than a dozen prior ities to be non-negotiable or whether the White House sees them more as a starting point for negotiation with members of Congress.
Trump last mon th appeared to reach at least the broad outlines of a DACA deal with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer in which he would agree to extend DACA protections in exchange for a package of border security measures.
While Trump made clear that he was not backing down on his wall demand, he and other administration officials said then that they would be comfortable with wall funding coming later, in a separate legislative vehicle.
In a joint statement Sunday night, Pelosi and Schumer said Trump’s list of proposals failed “to represent any attempt at compromise.”
“The Administration can’t be serious about compromise or helping the Dreamers if they begin with a list that is anathema to the Dreamers, to the immigrant community and to the vast majority of Americans” they wrote. “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.”