Donald Trump Ties Hardline Immigration Demands to a Deal on DACA

 

 

President Donald Trump prides himself on his skills as a negotiator. Among the tips he offers in “The Art of the Deal” is to “think big.” “To me it’s very simple,” he explains. “If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.” Of course, maximalism has always seemed more credo than negotiating strategy for Mr. Trump. But it provides a lens through which to view the set of immigration “principles” that the president sent to Congress on the evening of October 8th.

 

In September, Mr. Trump announced a six-month wind-down for an Obama-era program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which gives two-year work and residency permits to young undocumented immigrants, without criminal records, who were brought to America before they were 16, provided they are in or have graduated from high school or university or were honorably discharged from the army. That surprised nobody; Mr. Trump campaigned hard against illegal immigration, and his administration abounds in immigration hardliners—notably Jeff Sessions, his attorney-general, and Stephen Miller, a one-time aide to Mr. Sessions turned policy advisor.

 

But soon after ending DACA, Mr. Trump indicated that he would be open to a deal that protected the program's nearly 800,000 recipients. Most Americans, including most Republicans, believe that recipients should be allowed to stay; they were, after all, brought to America and raised there through no fault of their own. But enough Congressional Republicans disagree that any deal would depend on Democratic support. After a meeting with “Chuck and Nancy”—Schumer and Pelosi, the Senate and House Democratic leaders—the three were all smiles. There were reports that a deal had been struck. Those reports proved wrong, however. And after Sunday’s release of positions “that must be included in as part of any legislation addressing the status of DACA recipients”, the smiles have faded.

 

Some of Mr. Trump’s "principles" are unobjectionable, such as cracking down on visa overstays and requiring that employers electronically verify the immigration status of prospective hires. But the administration also says that any deal must include funding for a border wall—an immediate non-starter for Democrats (and probably repellent to budget-hawk Republicans too: the wall is a ludicrously expensive showpiece). The administration also wants funding to hire another 10,000 immigration agents and 300 prosecutors “to support Federal immigration prosecution efforts.”

 

Two White House officials told Politico that these positions were just an opening bid—Mr Trump “thinking big”, in other words. But the immigration debate has grown so acrimonious that both sides reject positions that they ought to support, or at the very least be able to live with. DACA recipients are precisely the sort of accomplished, diligent, educated immigrants that Republicans claim to want. Similarly, Democrats should have no objection to a more secure border (and indeed, privately many accept that a deal will have to include extra funding for border security; just not the wall).

The two sides now have five months left to strike a deal for DACA recipients. Republicans inclined to accept a deal will worry about primary challenges from the right (DACA ends just as campaign season heats up); those inclined to oppose will worry about footage showing Americans in all but name being rounded up and forcibly deported. Democrats face pressure to keep DACA recipients in the country they have grown up in, but also to avoid too much capitulation to Mr Trump—who is, after all, an unpopular president without a single legislative victory since taking office.