United States President Donald Trump says he is now open to a path to citizenship after 10 to 12 years for hundreds of thousands of undocumented Caribbean and other immigrants brought to the US as children.
Trump made the statement on Wednesday, days after rejecting a bipartisan plan with that as its centerpiece.
He told reporters at the White House that he would allow the young immigrants, known as Dreamers, to “morph into” citizens over a period of time.
The reporters had gathered for a briefing from a senior official detailing the administration’s plans to stick to a restrictive immigration agenda when the president dropped in unprompted, shortly before departing for Davos, Switzerland.
“Over a period of 10 to 12 years,” Trump said, “somebody does a great job, they work hard — that gives incentive to do a great job. Whatever they’re doing, if they do a great job, I think it’s a nice thing to have the incentive of, after a period of years, being able to become a citizen.”
In September, Trump ended an Obama-era program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, saying it was an illegal assertion of executive authority by his predecessor.
But even as. Trump’s actions threatened nearly 700,000 young immigrants with deportation when the programme expires March 5, he has urged Congress to find a permanent solution that could allow them to live and work in the country legally.
However, the fate of the Dreamers is at the center of a furious stalemate in Congress, where Republicans and Democrats are struggling to find a compromise.
According to the New York Times, Trump’s positions have been difficult to discern, vacillating between his expressions of sympathy for the DACA recipients and his hard-line demands for a crackdown on illegal immigrants.
As president, he quickly tried to impose a travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries and gave immigration agents more authority to round up undocumented Caribbean and other immigrants.
But he also once said that he wanted a “bill of love” to address the fate of the DACA recipients, the Times said.
Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, who is a hard-line conservative on immigration issues, reiterated that any deal on immigration would have to include Republican demands for tougher enforcement on immigration, saying on Twitter that “it must be done responsibly, guaranteeing a secure and lawful border & ending chain migration, to mitigate the negative side effects of codifying DACA.”
But Trump’s remarks drew support from Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina who has in recent weeks been at the forefront of efforts to reach an immigration deal. Graham had been one of the architects of the bipartisan plan rejected by Trump.
“President Trump’s support for a pathway to citizenship will help us get strong border security measures as we work to modernize a broken immigration system,” said Graham in a statement. “Finally, with this statement, we are on track to solving the immigration problem which is the political key to rebuilding our military.”
Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who has been leading the bipartisan talks with Graham, also welcomed Trump’s latest statement.
“The President is headed in the right direction here,” Durbin said.
Trump also said he will insist on an end to the diversity lottery system, which encourages immigration from a variety of countries. Trump referred to the programme as a “broken system” that brings the wrong kind of people into the United States. He said that he wanted to negotiate an end to so-called chain migration, but said he would work to allow nuclear families to stay together.
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