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President Donald Trump is making the case for his tougher immigration rules during his speech. "The current, outdated system depresses wages for our poorest workers, and puts great pressure on taxpayers," Trump said. (Feb. 28) AP

President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 28, 2017.(Photo: AP)

In his first speech to Congress, President Donald Trump on Tuesday told lawmakers that immigration reform is possible, in addition to the aggressive border-security policies that haveso far characterized his young administration.

But Trump gave few hints about what kind of reform he would consider, and some immigration-reform supporters immediately expressed skepticism about the gesture or rejected it outright. They noted the thrust of the speech's immigration message was focused on the hard-nosed stances he burnished over the course of the 2016 presidential campaign.

"I believe that real and positive immigration reform is possible, as long as we focus on the following goals: to improve jobs and wages for Americans, to strengthen our nations securityand to restore respect for our laws," Trump said in his hour-longremarks on Capitol Hill. "If we are guided by the well-being of American citizens then I believe Republicans and Democrats can work together to achieve an outcome that has eluded our country for decades."

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Congress' last effort at comprehensive reform of the nation's policies on immigration and border security a 2013 bill passed by the Senate would have granted many undocumented immigrants who havesettledin the U.S.a 13-year path to citizenship while funding unprecedented investment inborder security.

Trump, who campaigned for the White House as an anti-"amnesty" immigration hardliner, did not reveal any other details about his thinking on immigration reformin his address. But earlier in the day, he signaled that he would be interested in a compromise immigration bill that would provide some sort of legal status for many of the 11 million peoplenow in the United States illegally, although not a pathway to citizenship that many immigration advocates have long sought.

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Other parts of Trump's speech emphasized the immigration-enforcement policies that he has become known for, including his signature proposal for a new wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

We must restore integrity and the rule of law at our borders. For that reason, we will soon begin the construction of a great, great wall along our southern border.

"We must restore integrity and the rule of law at our borders," Trump said. "For that reason, we will soon begin the construction of a great, great wall along our southern border. As we speak tonight, we are removing gang members, drug dealers andcriminals that threaten our communities and prey on our very innocent citizens.Bad ones are going out as I speak and as I've promised throughout the campaign."

He also announced the creation of a new office in the Department of Homeland Security called "Victims Of Immigration Crime Engagement," or VOICE. The office will serve victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants.

Trump at one point mentioned four guests in the audience "whose government failed them."Jamiel Shaw, Susan Oliver, Jenna Oliverand Jessica Davis had relatives murdered by people in the country illegally, Trump said.Oliver and Davis are widows of law-enforcement officials killed in the line of duty.

"We are providing a voice to those who have been ignored by our mediaand silenced by special interests," Trump said.

Frank Sharry, executive director of Americas Voice, a Washington, D.C.-based group that pushes for immigration reform, blasted Trumps comments on immigration as xenophobic.

Despite the earlier news reports that Trump was open to passing an immigration bill that would allow some undocumented immigrants to gain legal status, his address to Congress made no mention of allowing them to legalize their status.

Instead, Sharry said, Trumps speech seemed tailored mostly at pleasing his nativist base.

There was nothing but deportations for the undocumented and nothing but cuts for family immigration, Sharry said.

In the speech, Trump called for switching away from what he called the current system of lower-skilled immigration and instead adopting a merit-based system.

Such a shift would save countless dollars, raise workers wagesand help struggling families including immigrating families enter the middle class and they will do it quickly and they will be very happy indeed, Trump said.

MORE:Arizona lawmakers react to Trump's speech

Sharry, however, said what Trump is saying is that he wants to cut legal immigration, specifically from Mexico, Latin Americaand Asia, the regions of the world that most benefit from the current family-based immigration system.

"Its just another way to say we want fewer brown and yellow people and we want to attract highly skilled people and presumably more Europeans," Sharry said. "Its really quite clear, its not about the rule of law, its about the color of skin. Its about race.

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Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., was a member of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" that collaborated on 2013 Senate-passed comprehensive immigration-reform legislation. He said Trump's remarks about the possibility of reform are a positive sign.

RELATED:Trump's speech: Exaggerations, omissions, facts

Flake said hehopes that legislative attempts to extend protections to the young "dreamers" enrolled in former President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will gain traction.

"Obviously, he wants better border security. We all do," Flake told The Arizona Republic after the speech. "Obviously, we've got to take care of the DACA kids. He's said that nobody's going to deport them. Congress has to act because to have any permanent solution, it has got to be Congress. So, yeah, I think we can work together."

Flake added that he's not surprised by the suggestion that Trump might consider a legal status for some undocumented immigrants: "We all knew it would involve that. If it's going to go to Congress, it's going to be a compromise."

An Arizona mom who was deported in early February has two kids who are U.S. citizens. But here's why Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos had no real path to apply for citizenship. Wochit

Astrid Silva, of Las Vegas, who was brought to the United States without authorization as a 4-year-old child, delivered a blistering Spanish-language Democratic response to Trump's speech, which she described as"divisive" and intended "to cause fear in communities across the country."

These people should not be ICE's target or priority. This is not who we are as a country.

In her remarks as prepared for delivery, she hammered the aggressive deportation effort since Trump took the oath of office.

"Among the people that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)arrested, are mothers, fathers, dreamers with DACA, a victim of domestic violenceand many more," Silva said.

As a matter of fact, tonight in the gallery listening to President Trumps speech were Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos children, a working mother from Arizona who went to her appointment with ICE only to be arrested and deported without reason," Silva continued. "Today,Guadalupe is far from her children, who are U.S. citizens and who are an example of the great impact that Trumps actions have over the American people in general, not just on the undocumented community.

These people should not be ICEs target or priority. This is not who we are as a country."

President Trump spoke to Congress about all of his administration's accomplishments so far. We broke down a couple of his claims.

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In his first speech to a joint session of Congress, President Trump emphasized that he will lead the United States, not the world. USA TODAY NETWORK

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During his address to Congress, President Trump called for the repeal and replacement of Obamacare. USA TODAY NETWORK

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President Donald Trump concluded his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night by asking for unity. "The time for small thinking is over. The time for trivial fights is behind us," Trump said. (Feb. 28) AP

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Congress applauded the widow of fallen U.S. Navy Special Operator Ryan Owens for so long that President Trump noted that it may have 'broken a record.' USA TODAY NETWORK

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President Donald Trump is making the case for his tougher immigration rules during his speech. "The current, outdated system depresses wages for our poorest workers, and puts great pressure on taxpayers," Trump said. (Feb. 28) AP

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President Donald Trump touted the accomplishments of his first month in office, saying companies have announced "they will invest billions of dolalrs in the United States and will create tens of thousands of new American jobs." (Feb. 28) AP

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President Trump listed the progress he has made in 'keeping his promises' during his first month in office while addressing Congress for the first time. USA TODAY NETWORK

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President Donald Trump is saying he will keep his promises to the American people while addressing Congress in his first speech as president. (Feb. 28) AP

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During his first address to Congress, President Trump described his campaign as a movement in 2016 that grew into an 'earthquake.' USA TODAY NETWORK

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President Donald Trump kicked off his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night by condemning acts of hate. He also spoke optimistically about the future of the country. (Feb. 28) AP

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Before his first Congressional address, President Trump appeared on Fox News to talk about everything from immigration to government leaks. USA TODAY NETWORK

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Democratic lawmakers from more than 30 states are taking part in a coordinated rebuttal to Trump's agenda. USA TODAY NETWORK

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President Donald Trump will deliver a speech to Congress on Tuesday night. Newslook

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Fact-checking Trump's first address to Congress

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Trump: 'Positive immigration reform is possible'

Trump touts first month accomplishments

Has Trump kept his promises so far? He thinks so

Trump: Above all else, we'll 'keep our promises'

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Here is what to expect from Donald trump's address to Congress

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President Donald Trump says immigration reform is possible - AZCentral.com

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump sees himself as a masterful dealmaker, and he has begun signaling that he believes he can land perhaps the thorniest of transactions in Washington: immigration reform.

Trump sparked a flurry of speculation when he privately told television anchors over lunch this week that he could support a compromise that allowed people with no criminal record to stay in the country and work and pay taxes.

Hours later, Trump made a last-minute addition to his high-profile speech before Congress, calling for an immigration overhaul that improves wages and increases security.

Real and positive immigration reform is possible, he said. ... If we are guided by the well-being of American citizens, then I believe Republicans and Democrats can work together to achieve an outcome that has eluded our country for decades.

But immigration experts are skeptical Trump has the attention span or the desire to pass a sweeping immigration overhaul, a deeply complicated undertaking that has failed twice in Washington in the last decade and would represent an about-face from Trumps hard-line campaign stance against illegal immigration and crackdown on migrants since he took office.

Trumps actions in his first month in office set his administration on a path toward a harsh deportation program that is already sweeping up many of the same people that an immigration reform package would protect from removal.

Politically, Trump has little room to maneuver. Over the last 20 months, Trump propelled himself first to the Republican nomination for president and then to the White House by railing against illegal immigration, and he would face an uproar from his base if he signed a bill that created a pathway to citizenship for people in the country illegally.

He also would face unhappy Republican leaders in Congress, who are focused on big-ticket proposals on health care and tax reform, an agenda that could be derailed by a protracted debate over immigration.

Nevertheless, Trump told news anchors in the White House that the time is right for an immigration bill and that positions on both sides need to be softened, according to a White House official present for the discussion.

The remark may have been mostly a reflection of Trumps penchant for playing to his audience in this case, journalists demanding answers about whether he can work with Congress on top policy issues.

Trump has expressed a willingness to ease his stance on immigration before. He told senators as recently as two weeks ago that they should revive a 2013 proposal that passed in the Senate but died in the House.

And in a news conference last month, Trump wavered when asked whether he will end President Barack Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields from deportation some young people who were brought illegally to the U.S. as children.

The DACA situation is a very, very its a very difficult thing for me because, you know, I love these kids, I love kids, I have kids and grandkids. And I find it very, very hard doing what the law says exactly to do and, you know, the law is rough, Trump said.

In addition, despite his campaign promise to end the Obama-era program that gives work permits to those young people, known as Dreamers, Trump has allowed his administration to continue to issue them.

Top aides, however, have identified ways to end the program without Trumps fingerprints, including through legal guidance issued by the departments of Homeland Security or Justice or through a lawsuit brought by states that the administration could decline to defend.

Immigration advocates, skeptical that Trumps comment to news anchors presaged a shift in his hard-line approach, acknowledged he could use his negotiating powers to bring about a deal.

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Trump sees immigration reform as the ultimate deal - The Recorder

President Donald Trump says hes open to a large-scale immigration reform bill if Republicans and Democrats can reach a compromise. But he forgot the biggest obstacle to a deal: his own policies and the revulsion theyve already fueled among Democrats.

Trump stormed into the White House with a vow to crack down on undocumented immigrants, and promptly followed through alienating advocates of a more generous immigration policy. Not only will Trump struggle to persuade Democrats to come to the table, its not even clear theyre in the same room.

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If hes serious, he should give us evidence and say, Im going to stop the deportations, said Rep. Luis Gutirrez, a key player in past immigration reform efforts. The Illinois Democrat said Trump needs to stand up to his hard line immigration brain trust Attorney General Jeff Sessions, chief strategist Steve Bannon and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach whom Gutierrez called the three principal heads of xenophobia.

Even Trump's critics were caught off guard by how quickly he moved to implement sweeping campaign promises, including the executive orders to build a wall on the southern border; to greatly broaden the pool of people likely to be deported; temporarily restrict citizens of several majority-Muslim nations from entering the U.S.; and suspend the refugee resettlement program.

Hints of a policy shift emerged on Tuesday afternoon, when the president told television news anchors in a closed-door luncheon that the time is right for an immigration reform bill and expressed openness to legal status for undocumented immigrants. He even suggested he would back giving a pathway to citizenship to so-called Dreamers, who came to the U.S. as children.

Not everyone was convinced.

Mark my words: This is going to be walked back, were going to see no plan at all, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a leading voice on immigration policy within the Democratic Party, told MSNBCs Morning Joe.

In his first joint address to Congress Tuesday night, Trump made no mention of such a proposal. Instead, he warned that the U.S. could become a sanctuary for extremists and spoke more about criminal immigrants than the vast, law-abiding majority. Bad ones are going out as I speak tonight, he said.

In one reference that elicited groans from congressional Democrats, the president touted the creation of a new office within Homeland Security to support victims of crimes by deportable immigrants. He called the new office, dubbed VOICE, a place to turn for people silenced by special interests.

Even his vision of immigration reform suggested a move to restrict legal immigration or at least reduce the number of lower-skilled immigrants and adopt a merit-based system that would prize skills over family connections.

The result nullified whatever goodwill he might have engendered among Democrats with his more centrist comments earlier in the day.

On the Senate floor Wednesday, Schumer portrayed Trumps immigration reform comments to news anchors as an aberration and the harsher speech to Congress as a better measure of his stance on the issue.

It was so funny he spoke to a bunch of cosmopolitan news anchors and mentioned maybe he will change his views on immigration and the media got into a buzz about that, Schumer said. The speech he gave was one of the most anti-immigrant speeches that we heard any president ever give. Schumer added Trump was saying one thing, doing another.

The Trump administration maintains its early actions around immigration have been reasonable and clearly laid out. White House spokesman Michael Short said the administration is focused on enforcing immigration laws, securing the border and removing criminals in the country illegally. The president has been clear about what his priorities are right now, Short said in an email. If Congress were to begin crafting legislation, hed be willing to listen and engage with them.

Immigrant rights groups have already assumed a vehemently anti-Trump posture that makes it difficult to imagine them supporting any kind of legislative effort attached to his name.

His whole worldview is just crushing the lives of immigrants, said Lynn Tramonte, deputy director of Americas Voice, a liberal group in favor of immigration reform. So the idea that there would be some compromise on legislation with him, its just so far from where we are today.

Tramonte sees the presidents talk of a merit-based immigration system as a euphemism for slashing future levels of immigration. Indeed, a bill introduced last month by Trump ally Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) would do just that cutting the levels of legal immigration in half over a decade.

Who engineers the criteria for somebody to qualify for this new merit-based system? Tramonte asked. If its people who dont like immigrants, theyre going to make it as narrow as possible.

The president could find a friendlier reception from business groups, which have been more supportive of his broader policy agenda. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance, has refrained from criticizing the administrations tough enforcement policies, even though it has extolled the economic virtues of immigration in the past.

In the view of Randy Johnson, a senior vice president at the Chamber, Trumps desire to move to a merit-based immigration system shows hes open to broader reform. You cant do merit-based immigration reform [by] just changing two or three words in the code, he said.

Trumps immigration overtures have played better with Republicans, too. Still, theyll also come with their own list of demands to include in any legislation, from new visas for temporary workers to citizenship for certain undocumented immigrants.

Few know the challenges to gathering consensus on immigration as well as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has worked to rally his party toward a reform bill for more than a decade. I think it opens a window of opportunity that perhaps we can all work together, he said of Trumps comments in an interview.

McCain, however, thinks citizenship and not just legalization for undocumented immigrants should be part of any legislative effort. Trump reportedly said Tuesday that he would oppose a pathway to citizenship for most of the countrys 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Suppose when the Irish came, McCain asked, should we have said you can come but you can never be citizens? Cmon Why would you want to have someone permanently reside in the United States without an opportunity to work their way through citizenship?

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who worked with McCain and Schumer on a bipartisan immigration reform effort in 2013, said Trump would need to support the principles in that bill to get any traction in the Senate.

If hes willing to embrace a logical solution for the 11 million that allows legal status, a pathway to citizenship for some, after they pass criminal background checks, requirements to learn English and pay a fine, then bill will pass, Graham said. If he doesnt, it wont pass.

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Democrats dismiss Trump's immigration reform talk - Politico

President Trump revealed the conditions under which he could support immigration reform, which would be a remarkable policy shift just as the White House prepares to put out a revised travel ban.

There was a little-noticed line in Trumps speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.

I believe that real and positive immigration reform is possible, Trump said at Tuesdays address, indicating he could be game for some sort of plan that would be less severe toward illegal immigrants than what his prior rhetoric had suggested.

But, he insisted, goals would need to be met before discussions of immigration reform could be enacted: To improve jobs and wages for Americans; to strengthen our nations security; and to restore respect for our laws.

Meanwhile the White House also postponed a planned executive-order signing Wednesday which would have reinstituted the travel ban.

Trumps first travel ban, which temporarily blocked travel of citizens from seven mostly Muslim countries to America, was blocked by a federal court.

White House officials are still continuing to debate the particulars of the new ban. There is reportedly a rift over whether to exclude Iraq.

Originally posted here:
Trump lays out 'goals' for immigration reform - New York Post

MORE THAN once, President Trump has enticed Democrats and some moderate Republicans and risked infuriating hard-liners in his base by expressing an openness to overhauling the nations dysfunctional immigration system. He did so again in a session at the White House with television news anchors Tuesday, saying hed consider a compromise that included legal status for millions of undocumented immigrants, and then wondering aloud whether he should float the idea to Congress in his speech that night. He did not but if he really wishes to bring about the unity and renewal of the American spirit he spoke of in his address, he should.

It is a fools game to guess whether the president will ultimately legalize or deport more of the nations 11 million undocumented immigrants; he himself may have no firm idea what he intends. But if he wants to soothe this festering political and social wound, he is well positioned to do it. Having established himself as a hard-liner on illegal immigration and proposed tough new measures to stop it, he might well persuade fellow Republicans to accept a compromise on the millions of noncriminal immigrants already in the country.

A good place to start would be the question of what to do about dreamers, the 2 million or so undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children. There Mr. Trump has been more consistent. After initially suggesting he would scrap the Obama administrations program granting them temporary protection from deportation, the new president has repeatedly expressed sympathy for the dreamers plight, making clear he is disinclined to target them for removal and telling the news anchors he would be open to forging a pathway to citizenship for them.

Fair enough, but will he have the courage of his apparent convictions? The test is whether he acts to dispel the uncertainty hanging over the heads of roughly 750,000 dreamers whose age, duration of residence in the United States and verified clean record enabled them to register for the program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which provides work permits and temporary protection from removal. Registrants, who submit their names, addresses and other information, are now justifiably fearful that the government may use that data to track them down once their two-year DACA protections lapse. Hundreds of thousands of other eligible youngsters are unlikely to enroll given that peril.

Dreamers represent a pool of talent, brains and ambition that the United States should want to cultivate. Some 3,700 students in the University of California system are undocumented immigrants, and tens of thousands of dreamers are enrolled at other post-secondary institutions across the country. What possible benefit is there in deporting a promising cohort that is American in all but birth certificate?

With the stroke of a pen, Mr. Trump could extend the existing program, enabling dreamers to continue working, studying and living productive lives. He could go further by proposing permanent legal status or a path to citizenship for immigrants who, in many cases, have little memory of any country but the United States. That would lend weight to the presidents oft-stated assertions of his compassion.

The rest is here:
Trump's opportunity to do the right thing on immigration reform - Washington Post