Trump open to citizenship path

Senators continue to work toward immigration deal

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday he’s open to an immigration plan that would provide a pathway to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of young people who were brought to the country as children and are now here illegally.

“We’re going to morph into it,” Trump told reporters. “It’s going to happen, at some point in the future, over a period of 10 to 12 years.”

Trump’s pronouncements came as the White House announced it would be unveiling a legislative framework on immigration next week that it hopes can pass both the House and the Senate. The president’s remarks amounted to a preview of that framework. He said he will propose $25 billion for building a wall on the U.s.-mexico border and $5 billion for other security measures.

But immediately after Trump spoke, a senior White House official stressed the idea of a pathway to citizenship for so-called Dreamers was just a “discussion point” in the plan that the White House intended to preview to the House and Senate later Wednesday.

Trump told reporters he had a message for the Dreamers: “Tell ’em not to be concerned, OK? Tell ’em not to worry. We’re going to solve the problem.”

Meanwhile, on the Hill, senators from both parties were making a fresh search for their own compromise immigration legislation.

Around three dozen senators from both parties met privately Wednesday, and two top lawmakers said they would try crafting a compromise bill based on colleagues’ suggestions.

The goal is to produce consensus legislation that would be the starting point for Senate debate on immigration, which is expected to begin Feb. 8, said Sens. John Cornyn, R-texas, and Dick Durbin, D-ill., their parties’ No. 2 leaders.

“We’re the Senate, we have our own responsibility under the Constitution, and we decided in this room to move forward,” Durbin said afterward. “If the president has some ideas he’d like to share, of course we’ll take a look at them.”

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement that he was “extremely pleased with the number of senators — from both sides of the aisle” — who had accepted his invitation. “My hope is that we can reach an agreement before Feb. 8,” he said.

Feb. 8 is the date legislation expires that reopened the government after a three-day shutdown, which began after Democrats demanded movement toward an immigration deal as the price for financing federal agencies.