White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Thursday that President Trump’s new immigration plan does not address the fate of young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children because the issue is too divisive.
Providing protections from deportations for such young immigrants, known as “dreamers,” has been a leading priority for Democrats ever since Trump sought to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
“Every single time we have put forward or anyone else has put forward any type of immigration plan and it’s included DACA, it’s failed. It’s a divisive thing,” Sanders told reporters at the White House, adding that the issue was “left out on purpose.”
Her comments came a few hours before Trump was scheduled to use a Rose Garden speech to throw his support behind a plan developed with his son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner to move U.S. immigration toward a “merit-based system” that prioritizes high-skilled workers over those with family already in the country.
[Trump prepares to unveil broad immigration plan but shows no signs of tempering hard-line rhetoric]
The proposal, previewed by Kushner and other Trump aides in private briefings on Capitol Hill over the past week, already is facing skepticism from lawmakers in both parties, and there appears to be no clear path toward advancing the plan through Congress.
But White House aides emphasized that Trump is enthusiastically on board with an effort to demonstrate that he endorses legal immigration to help U.S. companies even as he has railed against other groups, including immigrant families seeking asylum and refugees.
The DACA program, created by President Barack Obama through executive action in 2012, has provided renewable two-year work permits to more than 800,000 immigrants who arrived as children.
Trump moved to terminate the program in fall 2017, calling it unconstitutional, but federal courts have enjoined the administration from stripping the protections from those already enrolled, and the case could come before the Supreme Court in the next term. Trump has said he hopes the court permits him to end DACA, which he believes would give him more leverage to negotiate a broader immigration overhaul with Democrats.
House Democrats have put forward a bill that would offer a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, as well as for immigrants who are living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status, which Trump has also sought to end.
Speaking to reporters, Sanders said protections offered through the DACA program are “certainly something to discuss and look at and address.”
“But this plan is focused on a different part of fixing the immigration system, and we’d like for people to not reject it before they even sit down and really learn about it,” she said.
Sanders also sought to put Democrats on the defensive ahead of the formal release of Trump’s plan, claiming there is “nothing in there that Democrats shouldn’t be for.”
“We want to move to this merit-based system,” she said during an interview on Fox News. “Democrats right now, unless they get on board this, the only thing they’ve said they want is open borders. I think that is a terrible thing for our country, and I think it’s a terrible message for them going into 2020. I think it would be wonderful to watch them get on board with something that helps secure our border.”
At a news conference later Thursday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that she favors bipartisan “comprehensive” reform and that her chamber plans to act on several fronts, including protections for dreamers.
Pelosi said she had yet to be briefed on Trump’s plan but took issue with the use of the term “merit.”
“It is really a condescending word,” she said. “Are they saying family is without merit?”
Pelosi also argued that other Trump administration actions on immigration have contributed to what she called a “humanitarian crisis” at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“When you take children out of the arms of their parents, when you separate families, when you do what the administration has done at the border, you are making matters worse,” the speaker said.
Trump’s proposal won’t advance through Congress without buy-in from Democrats and is instead designed more as a messaging document from the White House that details what immigration ideas Trump can promote beyond his hard-line enforcement tactics.
[Trump’s emergency declaration to build border wall faces first court test]
Unlike with previous White House proposals, the administration took pains to ensure that the net number of green cards — which grant foreigners legal permanent residency in the United States — stayed the same as it is currently so that the overall level of immigration would not be cut. About 1 million immigrants are granted green cards every year, with the majority receiving it based on family ties, such as a parent being sponsored by a U.S. citizen.
Trump is seeking to eliminate several family-based avenues that have allowed immigrants to obtain green cards — and allow mainly spouses and children to be sponsored for permanent residency. The administration plans to make up the difference by dramatically increasing the number of green cards based on an immigrant’s merit and ability to contribute to the U.S. economy.
The new White House plan would devise a point-based system that would allow applicants to rack up eligibility based on factors such as age, ability to speak English, job offers and educational background. The administration is looking to emulate merit-based immigration laws in Canada, Australia, Singapore and Japan.
The administration also wants to emphasize the concept it has termed as “patriotic assimilation” — giving more credit to green-card applicants who want to integrate into U.S. culture and society.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-says-daca-protections-too-divisive-to-be-included-in-trump-immigration-plan/2019/05/16/5ee50606-77e3-11e9-b3f5-5673edf2d127_story.html
2019-05-16 15:44:16Z
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