Administration releases hard-line immigration principles, threatening deal on ‘dreamers’
WASHINGTON >> The Trump administration released a list of hard-line immigration principles Sunday night that could threaten to derail a deal in Congress to allow hundreds of thousands of younger undocumented immigrants to remain legally in the country.
The administration’s wish list includes the funding of a wall along the U.S.Mexico border, a crackdown on the influx of Central American minors and curbs on federal grants to sanctuary cities, according to a document distributed to Congress and obtained by The Washington Post.
The demands were quickly denounced by Democratic leaders in Congress who had hoped to forge a deal with President Trump to protect younger immigrants, known as “dreamers,” who were brought to the United States illegally as children. Trump announced plans last month to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, an Obama-era program that had provided twoyear work permits to the dreamers that he called “unconstitutional.”
About 690,000 immigrants are enrolled in DACA, but their work permits are set to begin expiring in March. Trump had met with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and agreed to try to strike a deal, worrying immigration hawks who feared that Trump would support a bill that would allow dreamers to gain full legal status without asking for significant border security measures in return.
The list released by the administration, however, would represent a major tightening of immigration laws. Cuts to legal migration also are included.
“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,” Schumer and Pelosi said in a joint statement Sunday evening. “We told the president at our meeting that we were open to reasonable border security measures alongside the DREAM Act, but this list goes so far beyond what is reasonable. This proposal fails to represent any attempt at compromise.”