Democrats immediately rejected President Donald Trump’s offer of a work-permit amnesty for one million registered migrants in exchange for 230 miles of new border wall.
The rejection came even though Trump’s offer angered his base by trading a DACA temporary amnesty for a wall.
Also, Trump did not ask for the reform of the many catch-and-release rules which allow the cartels to profitably smuggle hundreds of thousands of poor migrants into the U.S. labor market, welfare rolls, and U.S. K-12 schools.
The speech came after Trump had offered a series of smaller concessions in closed-door negotiations since Christmas.
Democrats quickly dismissed the amnesty offer.
Sen. Chuck Schumer also rejected the compromise, saying, “offering some protections back in exchange for the wall is not a compromise but more hostage taking.”
Before the speech began, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement rejecting the deal:
Unfortunately, initial reports make clear that his proposal is a compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total, do not represent a good faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives. It is unlikely that any one of these provisions alone would pass the House, and taken together, they are a non-starter. For one thing, this proposal does not include the permanent solution for the Dreamers and TPS recipients that our country needs and supports.
In general, Democrats want to win permanent amnesty for at least 11 million illegals, block Trump’s border reforms, including his border wall, and ensure a steady inflow of migrants.
Trump coupled his offer with requests for popular improvements along the border, including extra money for surveillance and immigration judges. But he did not call for reforms of the current catch-and-release rules and instead suggested those vital reforms be postponed to another series of negotiations.
The Democrats rejected the deal even though pro-American reform groups slammed the work-permit-amnesty-for-wall offer as bad politics and bad policy
“A wall for amnesty is terrible idea,” said one immigration reformer.
The proposed swap is bad politics, he said. “A quarter of wall funding — only $5.7 billion — is an even worse deal. This would be an absolute betrayal of the GOP base who voted Trump into office. Trump needs to listen to the base, not [White House aides] on this issue.”
The proposed deal would allow Washington to pocket the amnesty while denying Trump his wall, he added. “You must swap statutory changes for statutory changes. There is a chance that the wall will never be built but the amnesty happens immediately and is irreversible. It is 1986 all over again – when the amnesty happened immediately and the reforms never happened.”
Overall, the proposed deal would create new political problems for Trump before 2020, he said. “There’s one thing that will cause another crisis — another amnesty. This whole thing started with the DACA magnet. The notion that we’re about to solve the problem with more of what caused the problems in the first place is ridiculous.”
“The offer the President announced today is a loser for the forgotten American workers who were central to his campaign promises,” said NumbersUSA.
Establishment reporters covering the dispute sympathetically portrayed the Democrats’ rejection:
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