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Trump offers path to citizenship for 1.8 million
Story highlights
- The White House official called the citizenship numbers a "dramatic concession"
- The framework is also defining as border security closing "legal loopholes"
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump is proposing giving 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship
in exchange for $25 billion for his long-promised wall and a host of
other strict immigration reforms, according to a White House framework
proposed Thursday.
In
what the White House framed as a "dramatic concession" and
"compromise," Trump would accept a path to citizenship not just for the
roughly 700,000 undocumented immigrants were covered by the Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals program when it was ended. But the
proposal would also cover those undocumented immigrants who meet the
DACA criteria but did not sign up and even more who would be newly
eligible under the proposal's timeframe requirements -- giving legal
status and a pathway to citizenship to about 1.8 million people.
In
return, the White House would like to see a $25 billion investment in a
trust for border infrastructure and technology, as well as more funds
for personnel, and an end to family migration beyond spouses and minor
children. The diversity visa lottery would also be abolished, though the
visas would be reallocated so that the backlog of people already
waiting for family visas and high-skilled immigration green cards would
be processed.
In
what may end up being the most contentious piece of the proposal, the
White House is also looking to close "legal loopholes" that will allow
it to deport more immigrants, specifically as it relates to undocumented
immigrants from countries that don't border the United States -- which
would likely include changes in immigration enforcement authority that
would be virtually impossible for Democrats to swallow.
The
White House official sold the plan as a "compromise position" that it
believes would get 60 votes in the Senate -- a point White House
officials underscored multiple times on Thursday -- and then could be
"sent over to the House for additional improvement and modification."
One
senior White House official told conservative outside groups,
surrogates and congressional officials in a call Thursday that the bill
"should make Democrat support to get to 60 votes a given."
"This
is legislation that really represents a bipartisan consensus point. It
is extremely generous in terms of the DACA piece and then fulfills all
four of the President's priorities," a senior White House official told
reporters on Thursday. "This bill is right down the center in terms of
public opinion."
Senior White House
officials who briefed reporters Thursday on the framework also
expressed a pointed rejection of the Durbin-Graham bill that the White
House rejected in recent weeks.
One
official quipped that an agreement on immigration between Sen. Dick
Durbin, a Democrat, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican, is "like
announcing the sun has risen and there's fish in the ocean."
Another
official also said that despite suggestions from Senate Democrats, the
White House's framework is "galaxies apart" from what Senate Minority
Leader Chuck Schumer proposed to the President over the weekend.
White
House officials said Thursday they expect lawmakers on Capitol Hill to
"digest" the proposal and formulate legislative text to bring to the
floor in the Senate and called it "kind of the bottom line for the
President."
But the officials
signaled that while the framework should pass muster in the Senate, they
did not expect it to be the basis for legislation in the House.
Instead,
one senior White House official said it is "probably likely" that the
two chambers will pass different bills and "end up in conference."
The
White House's portrayal of the framework as a broad-based compromise is
likely to face skepticism on Capitol Hill, where immigration reform has
long been contentiously disputed. While the proposal's pathway to
citizenship for nearly 2 million undocumented immigrants will earn
plaudits from many Democrats, the framework also includes several
hardline immigration reforms that Democrats may find hard to swallow.
Some conservatives are also likely to oppose the pathway to citizenship that Trump is endorsing.
Those
eligible will be able to become citizens in 10 to 12 years, Trump said
on Wednesday, contingent on meeting work and education requirements the
White House is leaving up to Congress to establish.
"If
they do a great job, I think it's a nice thing to have the incentive
of, after a period of years, being able to become a citizen," Trump said
Thursday.
And the clock is ticking down for lawmakers to find a solution, with DACA protections expiring March 5.
If
a deal can't be reached by then, a senior White House official made
clear Thursday that those immigrants whose protections expire could be
subject to deportation.
"If it
doesn't work then they'll be illegal immigrants and if they fall into
the hands of ICE," the official said. "They won't be targeted, but if
they fall into the hands of ICE ... well they'll be put into the system
... and ultimately could lead to their deportation."
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