Trump Immigration Plan Offers Citizenship Path to 1.8 Million

Opponents say the plan lacks details and sabotages bipartisan talks

WASHINGTON (AP) – The White House says President Donald Trump is proposing to provide a path to citizenship for 1.8 million so-called “Dreamers,” younger immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. The plan is likely to get a mixed reaction on Capitol Hill. Senior White House officials are offering a preview of Trump’s immigration framework, casting it as a compromise that could pass the Senate.

The Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) currently covers roughly 690,000 of those younger immigrants.  Trump’s plan would expand this further by adjusting some of the requirements, officials said, but they would not offer specific details.

Trump ended the DACA program in September, setting a March 5 deadline for Congress to provide legal protections or the program’s recipients would once again be subject to deportation.

Trump’s plan would also end the diversity visa lottery program.

On Wednesday (1/23/18), Trump said he was open to a pathway to citizenship for the younger immigrants. “We’re going to morph into it,” Trump told reporters. “It’s going to happen, at some point in the future, over a period of 10 to 12 years.”

Meanwhile, immigration activists blasted the plan. Lorella Praeli, with the American Civil Liberties Union, called it “a hateful, xenophobic immigration proposal that would slash legal immigration to levels not seen since the racial quotas of the 1920s…  The White House proposal is clearly an effort to sabotage bipartisan talks on the issue by continuing to put issues on the table that are non-starters.”