President Trump will back a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million undocumented immigrants if he gets $25 billion for a border wall “trust fund,” a drastic reduction of family migration and an end to the visa lottery system, the White House said Thursday.
The White House released its latest immigration framework and urged the Senate to immeidately pass the “compromise” plan before the deportation protections for young documented immigrants end March 6.
“We believe that we have come up with a framework that … represents a compromise that members of both parties can support and we encourage the Senate to bring it to the floor,” a senior White House official told reporters Thursday.
The plan drew quick rebuke from activists on the far right and the left, but earned praise from some solution-minded senators.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C). applauded Trump for backing a “realistic framework.”
“Congress needs to get this done for the good of our nation,” he said.
Trump’s plan will offer a pathway to citizenship in 10 to 12 years for the roughly 800,000 DACA recipients but also up to 1 million others who were eligible for the protection but never applied for the program. There would be requirements for work, education and “good moral character,” the White House said.
Trump killed the Obama-era DACA program in September, arguing that it was unconstitutional, leaving the fate of the dreamers, who were brought to the US illegally as children, up in the air.
In exchange, Trump wants $25 billion for a border wall “trust fund” to build a wall with Mexico, beef up security at ports of entry and fund Northern border enhancements, under the proposal. The White House is also demanding additional homeland security and law enforcement agents, immigration judges and prosecutors to speed up the deportation process.
The plan also calls for major restrictions to legal immigration. First, ending chain migration for extended family members, including parents, siblings and adult children. That means lawful US residents could only sponsor spouses and minor children to join them in the United States. Secondly, ending the visa lottery system that gave opportunities to 50,000 people from diverse countries – a program that prompted Trump’s “s–thole” rant. Those visas would shift to ease the backlogs in family and high-skill worker visa programs.
Immigration advocates said Trump and hardliner aide Stephen Miller were going too far with the cuts to legal immigration.
“They think that by offering up a spoonful of sugar – relief for Dreamers – they can get Congress and the American people to swallow the bitter medicine of radical nativism,” Frank Sharry, the executive director of America’s Voice, a pro-immigration group, said. “We are going to fight this tooth and nail. We are not going to stand by while Trump and Miller take Dreamers hostage in order to keep out and kick out millions.”
Erika Andiola, an undocumented immigrant activist and former Bernie Sanders aide, panned the White House framework as a “white supremacist wish list.”
Conversely, immigrant hardliners blasted Trump for rewarding illegal immigration. The homepage headline for Breitbart.com, the website once run by nationalist Stephen Bannon, blared: “Don’s Amnesty Bonanza.”
Conservative firebrand Ann Coulter scoffed: “Why is it so hard to enforce the law … and keep campaign promises,” she told the Lars Larson Show Thursday night.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) earlier Thursday suggested Trump was betraying his voters.
“I do not believe we should be granting a path to citizenship to anybody here illegally,” Cruz told reporters, according to Bloomberg. “Doing so is inconsistent with the promises we made to the men and women who elected us.”
The president’s shifting positions on illegal immigrants protected from deportation by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals has confused his own administration, GOP lawmakers and Democrats.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell thanked the White House for outlining a plan that Trump actually would support. Bipartisan senators working to strike a DACA deal and avoid another government shutdown Feb. 8 will “look to this framework for guidance as they work towards an agreement,” McConnell said.
But Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a broker of a bipartisan Dreamer legislation, rejected the White House plan.
“Dreamers should not be held hostage to President Trump’s crusade to tear families apart and waste billions of American tax dollars on an ineffective wall,” Durbin said.