Donald Trump to offer 1.8 million undocumented immigrants path to citizenship in exchange for Mexico border wall funding

Donald Trump is currently in Davos at the World Economic Forum
EPA
Tom Powell26 January 2018

Donald Trump is hoping to allow 1.8 million undocumented immigrants to become US citizens under a new immigration plan.

The proposals, to be unveiled on Monday, also include $25 billion in funds for a wall on the Mexico border.

The plan is likely to find resistance from some of the president’s conservative allies, but it is hoped to be enough of a compromise to pass the Senate.

Details of the plan emerged in a call between White House policy chief Stephen Miller and Republican congressional aides, according to reports.

The blueprint - reportedly described by Mr Miller as a “dramatic concession” – sets out a 10-12 year path to citizenship for 1.8 million people.

Mr Trump has previously promised to eliminate an Obama-era programme protecting immigrants brought to the US as children and now in the country illegally.

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The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme currently covers roughly 690,000 of those younger immigrants, about half the number who qualified for the programme.

Mr Trump's plan would expand this further by adjusting some of the requirements, officials said, but they did not offer specific details.

It would not allow parents of those immigrants to seek lawful status, the officials said.

On Wednesday, Mr Trump said he was open to a pathway to citizenship for younger immigrants brought illegally to the US as children.

"We're going to morph into it," he said. "It's going to happen, at some point in the future, over a period of 10 to 12 years."

Democrats said they were heartened by Mr Trump's support, while Republicans were more cautious.

Moderate Senator Joe Manchin said he was "very encouraged" by Mr Trump's surprising words, which the president made late on Wednesday in impromptu comments to reporters.

Among Republicans, Oklahoma Senator James Lankford said he supports the citizenship pathway Mr Trump described.

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