Trump’s Immigration Plan Offers Pathway to Citizenship for 1.8 Million “Dreamers”

U.S. President Donald Trump, flanked by U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD), holds a bipartisan meeting with legislators on immigration reform at the White House in Washington, U.S. January 9, 2018. (Photo: Reuters)

President Donald Trump shocked his base on Thursday releasing an immigration plan that would provide a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million “dreamers” in the U.S. illegally. The proposal was unveiled ahead of schedule.

On Tuesday, the White House said the 4-pronged plan would be out on Monday.

In September, when President Trump rescinded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), he reassured his base that no special treatment would be given to the roughly 690,000 immigrants who currently meet all of DACA’s eligibility requirements.

“We’re not looking at citizenship,” President Trump told reporters at the time. “We’re not looking at amnesty. We’re looking at allowing people to stay here.”

On Wednesday, he completely reversed his position on a pathway to citizenship into something unrecognizable from his campaign promises.

“We’re going to morph into it,” he now told reporters. “It’s going to happen, at some point in the future, over a period of 10 to 12 years.”

Despite the flip-flop to a more than moderate position, Democrats are still painting the plan as anti-immigrant and even downright racist.

“The Administration’s anti-immigrant framework is an act of staggering cowardice which attempts to hold the DREAMers hostage to a hateful anti-immigrant scheme,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement. “The 50 percent cut to legal immigration in the framework and the recent announcements to end Temporary Protected Status for Central Americans and Haitians are both part of the same cruel agenda.”

Worth noting, the Democrats’ DREAM Act only provided a fast-track citizenship for up to 3.25 million illegals, plus millions of their foreign chain-migration relatives. A recently leaked memo from the Center For American Progress (CAP) Action Fund reveals Democrats want to legalize “Dreamers” because they see them as a “critical component” of the party’s “future electoral success.”

“They are part of the Trump Administration’s unmistakable campaign to make America white again,” Rep. Pelosi added.

DACA is just part of what is a four-part plan including limiting chain migration to spouses, ending the Diversity Immigrant Visa (DV) Program and provides more than $20 billion for construction of the border wall on the southern border.

Worth noting, a new Harvard-Harris Poll finds Americans overwhelmingly agree with President Trump’s original position on chain migration and the lottery, with roughly 8 in 10 wanting legal immigration levels to be reduced.

Chain migration refers to the endless chains of foreign nationals who are allowed to immigrate to the U.S. because citizens and lawful permanent residents are allowed to sponsor their non-nuclear family members. Annual immigration has at least tripled since chain migration began in the mid-1960s, though some estimates are even higher.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed Akayed Ullah, 27, a Bangladeshi national living in Brooklyn — the suspect behind an attempted terror attack on the Port Authority in New York City — was in the U.S. due to chain migration.

As PPD was first to report, Sayfullo Saipov, the 29-year-old Uzbekistan national who killed 8 and injured at least 11 others during a terror attack near the World Trade Center in November, came to the U.S. under the visa lottery in 2010.

While Democrats are calling the plan “dead on arrival,” some conservatives are pushing back as well.

“DACA itself didn’t have a pathway to citizenship,” Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said. “So I think it would be a profound mistake and not consistent with the promises we made to the voters, to enact a pathway to citizenship to DACA recipients or to others who are here illegally.”

The immigration reform bill drafted in the House of Representatives by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas., only offered renewable work-permits for the 670,000 illegals now registered under DACA.

White House policy advisor Stephen Miller had what was a contentious conference call with conservatives and immigration hawks. They made their opposition to the bill very clear, according to sources. From Freedom Caucus members such as Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, to Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., lower chamber Republicans reportedly feel the White House has undermined the House plan.