Trump's support for law to protect 'Dreamers' lifts its chances

An unexpected meeting of the minds between President Trump and Democratic leaders on Thursday made real a possible deal in Congress to pair enhanced border security with legislation to protect young, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children.

One day after Mr. Trump hosted Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi for dinner at the White House, the president said he could support legislation to protect the young immigrants known as “Dreamers” from deportation if it were accompanied by a “massive” border security upgrade. Acceding to a key Democratic demand, Mr. Trump said such a package did not need to have funding for a border wall.

It was the second time this month that a tentative agreement announced by Democrats left Republican leaders in Congress scrambling to adjust a legislative agenda that appears increasingly set by the party out of power in the House, the Senate and the White House.

“We’re working on a plan for DACA,” Mr. Trump told reporters, referring to protections for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, as he prepared to leave the White House for Florida. He added, “The wall will come later.”
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Trump moves to end DACA and calls on Congress to act

President Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to the Obama-era program that shields young undocumented immigrants from deportation, calling it an “amnesty-first approach” and urging Congress to pass a replacement before he begins phasing out its protections in six months.

As early as March, officials said, some of the 800,000 young adults brought to the United States illegally as children who qualify for the program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, will become eligible for deportation. The five-year-old policy allows them to remain without fear of immediate removal from the country and gives them the right to work legally.

Mr. Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who announced the change at the Justice Department, both used the aggrieved language of anti-immigrant activists, arguing that those in the country illegally are lawbreakers who hurt native-born Americans by usurping their jobs and pushing down wages.

Mr. Trump said in a statement that he was driven by a concern for “the millions of Americans victimized by this unfair system.” Mr. Sessions said the program had “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same illegal aliens to take those jobs.”

Protests broke out in front of the White House and the Justice Department and in cities across the country soon after Mr. Sessions’s announcement. Democrats and some Republicans, business executives, college presidents and immigration activists condemned the move as a coldhearted and shortsighted effort that was unfair to the young immigrants and could harm the economy.

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