Trump calls for a DACA ‘bill of love’
Says he’ll sign anything as judge blocks shield phaseout
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump told lawmakers Tuesday that “I’ll take the heat” for a comprehensive immigration bill to address the roughly 11 million people in the country illegally — a measure that would test the support of his anti-immigration loyalists — after he and Congress first agree to a measure to protect socalled Dreamers while tightening border security.
Trump made the comments during a free-wheeling exchange with 12 Republican and eight Democratic lawmakers at the White House that remained open to the media for nearly an hour, giving reporters a fly-on-the-wall vantage to a normally closed meeting.
Hours later, a federal judge in California issued a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration’s decision to phase out the Obama-era program that shielded young immigrants from deportation.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup granted a request by California and other plaintiffs to prevent Trump from ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program while their lawsuits play out in court.
Alsup said lawyers in favor of DACA clearly demonstrated that the young immigrants "were likely to suffer serious, irreparable harm" without court action.
At Tuesday’s meeting, lawmakers several times tried to pin Trump down on points of immigration policy and legislative process as the president sent mixed signals.
The decision to let reporters remain to watch Trump in the role of wouldbe bipartisan deal-maker led to speculation that the White House was trying to counter ongoing attention to a new book, “Fire and Fury,” that has prompted questions about his fitness for office.
It was unclear that the meeting achieved any breakthrough. During the meeting, Trump said Congress should write a “bill of love.”
The White House meeting was called to help resolve differences over immigration issues, which threaten to stymie passage of a funding bill needed to keep the government operating beyond Jan. 19. Democrats, whose votes the majority Republicans need to pass a funding measure and avert a government shutdown, demand that it include language protecting immigrants brought to the country illegally as children from deportation.
In the discussion, Democrats sought to reconcile Trump's professed support for protecting those immigrants with his demands to add curbs on legal immigration and spend $18 billion to start work on his promised border wall.
The controversy had simmered since September, when Trump ordered an end to the Obama-era program that had allowed young immigrants to get two-year permits to stay legally, work and attend school. At that time he told Congress to come up with an alternative for DACA before about 700,000 immigrants face deportation once their permits begin expiring March 6.
To the surprise of lawmakers, the president veered from the DACA question to urge Congress to try to reach much broader immigration legislation. That prompted Democrats and Republicans to recount their failures of recent years, over months of work under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, to provide a path to legal status or citizenship for millions in the country illegally.
“If you want to take it that further step, I’ll take the heat. I don’t care,” Trump said.
He encouraged lawmakers to pass the more narrow bill first, but start “the next afternoon” on comprehensive immigration reform.
Trump insists any bill include sweeping changes to legal immigration programs — to do more to favor skilled immigrants, limit the ability of citizens to sponsor foreign relatives for residency visas and end a visa lottery system — and provide an $18 billion installment for a border wall.
Trump repeatedly expressed support for DACA in the meeting but at times left lawmakers confused as to whether he stood by his conditions.
Reflecting the views of fellow Democrats, as well as a few Republicans, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California encouraged Trump to support “a clean DACA bill” and save his immigration crackdown proposals for later comprehensive legislation.
“What about a clean DACA bill now with a commitment that we go into a comprehensive immigration reform procedure?” Feinstein asked him.
“I have no problem,” Trump replied. “We’re going to do DACA and then we can start immediately on the phase two, which would be comprehensive.”
Trump resisted efforts by Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican majority leader, to get him to commit to the specific elements in a bill he’d sign.
“I’ll sign whatever immigration bill they send me,” Trump said.