The White House said it would allow 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants become citizens if the Democrats agree to curbs on some legal immigration schemes.
United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered up to 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants a way to become American citizens, but said he would not budge on measures that would curb some legal immigration programmes and help his administration build a border wall with Mexico, Reuters reported on Thursday.
“Over a period of 10 to 12 years, somebody does a great job, they work hard – that gives incentive to do a great job,” The New York Times
quoted Trump as saying. “Whatever they are 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.”
The White House said this was a major concession to the Democrats, who have been battling
the Republicans in the Senate over protection for such undocumented
immigrants. The Barack Obama-era programme – known as the Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA – protects seven lakh
undocumented immigrants who came to the US when they were young from
being sent out of the country. In September 2017, Trump had ended the programme and allowed the Congress to replace it by March 2018.
However,
if the Democrats agree to Trump’s proposal, they would have to say yes
to slashing family sponsorship of immigrants, tightening border security
and using billions of dollars to fund a border wall with Mexico, which
was one of the major campaign promises of the president.
“This is legislation that really represents a bipartisan consensus point,” CNN
quoted an unidentified senior White House official as saying. “It is
extremely generous in terms of the DACA piece and then fulfils all four
of the president’s priorities.”
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