» Trump plan includes path to citizenship for immigrants,
Path to citizenship in plan that takes hard line on issues.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump proposed legislation Thursday that would provide a path to citizenship for as many as 1.8 million young, unauthorized immigrants in exchange for an end to decades of family-based migration policies, a massive border wall and a vast crackdown on other immigrants already living in the country illegally.
Describing the plan as “extremely generous” but a take-it-or-leave-it proposal by the president, White House officials said they hoped it will be embraced by conservatives and centrists in Congress as the first step in an even broader effort to fix the nation’s broken immigration system.
But the plan — drafted by Stephen Miller, the president’s hard-line domestic policy adviser and John Kelly, the White House chief of staff — was immediately rejected by Democrats, pro-immigration activists and some Republicans, with some describing it as nothing but a heartless attempt to rid the country of immigrants and slam shut the nation’s borders.
Republican and Democratic senators are working on a narrower immigration plan of their own, hoping that if it can pass the Senate with a strong, bipartisan majority, it would be Trump who would have the take-it-orleave-it decision.
Eddie Vale, a Democratic consultant working with a coalition of immigration groups, described the president’s proposal as an effort to sabotage bipartisan talks and win passage of “a white supremacist wish list.”
Many senators indicated little appetite for the more hard-line approach. “If you start putting all these highly charged toxic issues, it’s just not going to work,” said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.
Anti-immigration activists also assailed the plan, though for the opposite reason. The Breitbart.com website greeted word of the president’s plan with the headline: “Amnesty Don Suggests Citizenship for Illegal Aliens.”
Hard-liners, apparently led by Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, say the White House’s strategy needs to be considered — and that means four elements: Dreamers, border security and a wall, chain migration and an end to the diversity visa lottery.
“The reality is the president said there has to be four pillars,” Cornyn said. “People just need to accept that and deal with it.”
Under Trump’s plan, described by senior White House officials, young immigrants who were brought into the U.S. as children would be granted legal status, allowed to work legally, and could become citizens over a 10- to 12-year period if they remain out of trouble with the law.