President Donald Trump said Friday that Dreamers, illegal immigrants who have benefitted from former President Barack Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, should rest easy about his administrationsapproach to immigration reform.
In an interview with The Associated Press, the president said the White House is not after the dreamers, we are after the criminals.
That is our policy, Trump said.
The topic came up asthe Trumpadministration faces a lawsuit from a 23-year-old Dreamer who was recently deported to Mexico despite the fact that DACA granted him protected status until 2018.
While Trump has been telegraphing this shifting position on Dreamers since he assumed the presidency, he sang an entirely different tune when he was candidate Trump.
When he first announced his presidential campaign in June 2015, Trump promised to immediately terminate President [Barack] Obamas illegal executive order on immigration. One of those executive orders was the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which Obama signed in June 2012.
Trumpdoubled down on that during an August 2016 speech on immigration, telling supporters: We will immediately terminate President Obamas two illegal executive amnesties, in which he defied federal law and the Constitution to give amnesty to approximately 5million illegal immigrants.
But on Jan. 18, just two days beforebecoming president, Trump began softening his position. When asked by Fox News Fox and Friends host Ainsley Earhardt how he plans to address immigration issues, he told her his plan would have a lot of heart, adding that being a Dreamer is a very tough situation.
But I think theyre going to end up being very happy, he told Earhardt.Were going to have great people coming into our country, people that love our country.
Then in February, when he held an extremely contentious newsconference from the White House, Trump described DACA as a very, very difficult subject for me.
Heres what he told reporters at the time:
DACA is a very, very difficult subject for me. You have these incredible kids, in many cases not in all cases. In some of the cases theyre having DACA and theyre gang members and theyre drug dealers too. I have to deal with a lot of politicians dont forget and I have to convince them that what Im saying is right. And I appreciate your understanding on that. The DACA situation is a very difficult thing for me as I love these kids, I love kids, I have kids and grand kids and I find it very, very hard doing what the law says exactly to do and, you know, the law is rough. Its rough, very very rough.
And in March, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly tried to ease concerns some Democrats have aboutDACA. He reportedly told them, Im the best thing that happened to DACA. It is still on the books.
But asforthe situationregardingJuan Manuel Montes, the deported Dreamer, Trump said that case is a little different than the Dreamer case, the AP reported. The president didnt offer any explanation for that conclusion.
According to Politicos report, Montes lost his DACA status because he left the U.S. without seeking prior approval, which is a violation of the terms of the program.
Regardless of what happens with DACA, though, the president seems committed to his plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border another one of Trumps long-held promises. Kelly, standing alongside Attorney General Jeff Sessions, told Fox Newson Thursday that construction of the perimeter could begin as soon as this summer.
I think by late spring, early summer, well have some prototypes and then well be able to move forward by into the summer, he said. Were going to get at it as quick as we can.
Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, told the AP that Congress spending bill, which is facing an April 28 deadline in order to avert a government shutdown, must include funding for the border wall.
He said elections have consequences and that we want wall funding as part of the spending package. That hard-line position will surely cause headaches for lawmakers seeking to sidestep a shutdown at the end of the month.
We want wall funding. We want [immigration] agents. Those are our priorities, Mulvaney said. We know there are a lot of people on the Hill, especially in the Democratic Party, who dont like the wall, but they lost the election.
The president should, I think, at least have the opportunity to fund one of his highest priorities in the first funding bill under his administration, he continued.
On the campaign trail, it should be noted, Trump consistently and vehementlypromisedMexico would pay for the border wall.
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