Trump’s new immigration proposal could go further than 2018 DACA deal

President Donald Trump teased his openness this week to a deal that provides a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants in the United States, but it is not something that he can do alone.Trump’s openness to a “deal” to allow illegal immigrants who have lived and worked in the country for 10 or 15 years to gain legal status would go far beyond the agreement he sought to lock down in 2018, during his first term.Trump floated that he is willing to do things differently on immigration after his party suffered brutal losses in the midterm elections. He quipped that he would be open to working with Democrats on immigration reform in his final two years in office. Given that Trump is now a lame duck, his willingness to get a deal done before leaving office may be even higher than before, and there is only so much anyone else in Washington can do to stop the The Art of the Deal author from making one of his classic business deals.A senior Trump administration official involved in immigration policy told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that Trump’s focus is consistently on securing deals, even though his new White House chief of staff Stephen Miller’s focus is consistently on locking in policies that are in line with “America First” principles.“It doesn’t seem consistent with [Miller’s views],” the official said in a phone call. “Innately, he has this ‘art of the deal’ that’s always playing in the background.”Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow for the American Immigration Council in Washington, noted in a post to X this week that Trump “is more liberal on immigration than the person he’s given total control over the issue: Stephen Miller.”Trump touted going significantly further this time around than in his first term when it comes to a deal with Democrats.In the first-term proposal, Trump offered the “Framework on Immigration Reform and Border Security” as a way for illegal immigrants in the U.S. who were brought into the country as children to apply in 10 years to obtain lawful permanent residence, or a green card, which is the prerequisite to being able to apply for naturalization, recounts Andrew Arthur, resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies.The plan that the White House and congressional Democrats worked on at the time would have been applied to 1.8 million people in the country illegally, including roughly 700,000 who were protected from deportation through an Obama-era executive action known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.The 2012 DACA program gave temporary two-year protections from deportation and permits for recipients to work. The program helped those who were brought into the country as children avoid arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on a temporary basis, but it ultimately did not provide them with a way to permanently remain in the country.Republicans largely objected to former President Barack Obama’s executive action and viewed it as executive overreach because the Constitution states that only Congress may set immigration levels.Any action that Trump could take is not likely to face the same criticism as Obama if it is done through the legislative branch, even though it would potentially go further than just protecting people from deportation.CONSERVATIVES BALK AT TRUMP’S ‘AMNESTY’ PROPOSAL: ‘TOTAL BETRAYAL’In a CBS News 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday evening, Trump said he was open to a deal allowing longtime illegal immigrants to come out of the shadows.However, MAGA figures and some conservatives ridiculed the idea as “amnesty,” a term used for the forgiveness of immigration offenses, although the White House insisted afterward that any such proposal should not be confused with amnesty.