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President-elect Donald Trump says he wants to work with Democrats on a “plan” to help illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. as minors and were protected from deportation by an Obama-era order, echoing a similar push he attempted in 2019.
Trump was asked in an NBC News interview Sunday about “dreamers,” a term favored by activists for illegal immigrants who arrived as children, and whether they would be included in their mass deportation plan.
“The Dreamers will come later, and we have to do something with the Dreamers, because they are people who have been brought here from a very young age, and many of these are now middle-aged people, they don’t even speak the language. of their country, and yes, we’re going to do something about it,” Trump said.
President-elect Donald Trump sat down with Kristen Welker for an interview on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. (Screenshot/NBC)
“I will work with the Democrats on a plan, and if we can come up with a plan, but the Democrats have made it very, very difficult to get anything done. The Republicans are very open to the Dreamers. The Dreamers, we’re talking. They’ve been taking in this country many years ago, some of them are no longer young and in many cases they are successful,” he continued. “They have great jobs. In some cases, they have small businesses. In some cases, they may have large businesses, and we’re going to have to do something about them.”
When asked if she wanted them to be able to stay, she said, “I, I want to be able to work something out.”
“I think we can work with the Democrats and work something out,” he said.
Then-President Barack Obama signed the executive order, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)in 2012, which protected more than 800,000 illegal immigrants from deportation and gave them the ability to work in the US
The Trump administration pushed unsuccessfully to end DACA, being blocked by the Supreme Court. It remains before the courts with a lawsuit challenging the legality of the policy under review in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
ICE agents conduct an enforcement operation inside the US on June 2, 2022. (Immigration and Customs Control)
However, as the Trump administration pushed to end DACA, Trump proposed three additional years of protection for DACA recipients and others in exchange for money to build a wall along the southern border. Democrats dismissed that deal as “hostage-taking.”
Immigration activists have pushed for the passage of the DREAM Act, which has been introduced several times. This legislation would go far beyond DACA and grant a path to citizenship for what advocates believe is 2 million illegal immigrants.
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Trump has vowed to launch a massive deportation campaign when he takes office in January, where he will also have a Republican House and Senate. Before that, some Democrats have called on President Biden to expand existing protections for some illegal immigrants, including DACA recipients.
Immigration activists were unimpressed by Trump’s comments. Bruna Sollod, senior policy director at United We Dream, said in response to Trump’s comments: “Actions speak louder than words, and Donald Trump’s track record of attacking DACA, fueling depraved misinformation and violence, and scapegoating immigrants scapegoats date back to his first day in office to this day.”
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Sollod said Trump should “immediately call on his allies in Texas to drop the DACA lawsuit and stop his agenda of mass detention and deportation now.”
