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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she would not sign off on an immigration reform bill from President Trump that didn't allow a pathway to citizenship for the millions of people already in the country without documentation.

"It's very important for our country to say the path to citizenship is the dignity these people need," she said Wednesday morning on MSNBC.

Pelosi said one the areas that Democrats want to work with Trump, when the time comes, is immigration reform.

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"If it's something that forbids citizenship, no I couldn't sign onto that. If we want to talk about I think there are plenty of ways we can work in a bipartisan way on immigration, in fact we have to," Pelosi said.

She said she was hopeful about Trump's statements to news anchors Tuesday before his speech that reporters said were a sign he would be open to legal status for illegal immigrants who haven't committed a crime. But Trump kept to his hardline immigration position during the speech, and Pelosi admitted that a shift by Trump would face blowback in his own party, she said.

"Whatever the president might propose, it'll be interesting how the Congress disposes of it," she said.

Pelosi said her conference isn't planning on cooperating with Trump's agenda for the time being because she sees nothing worth backing. She said Democrats would present their own agenda for governing when the time comes.

"When we believe the time is right, we will put forth our positive agenda, and not while people are enamored with a snake oil salesman," she said. "All we have is rhetoric, we don't have any legislation."

Also from the Washington Examiner

An aide to President Trump disputed reports that national security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster told aides not say "radical Islamic terrorism" during his first meeting with his new staff last week.

Reports from the meeting indicated McMaster, known to have an independent streak, said using the term "radical Islamic terrorism" wasn't helpful in fighting terrorism. But, deputy assistant to the president Sebastian Gorka said that report wasn't accurate.

"He didn't actually say that. You shouldn't believe everything you read in the New York Times," Gorka told NPR Wednesday.

He added, "He didn't actually say that. He was talking specifically about ISIS at the time. We're talking about the broader threat.

03/01/17 2:40 PM

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Pelosi: Immigration reform bill must include path to citizenship - Washington Examiner

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said Tuesday on Special Report with Bret Baier that if President Trump wants to lead a movement for comprehensive immigration reform, he is the man who can do it.

This is a Nixon to China kind of proposition, a guy who has been accused of just about everything, talked about, you know, border enforcement with people going around in trucks deporting people, said Krauthammer. If this president proposes when it comes to the DREAMERs, the young people brought here as children, he wants to legalize them, that would be the starting point.

Krauthammer went on to say a comprehensive immigration reform deal has been waiting for years and years, and suggested that, with the urging of the president for a negotiation, Republicans would be willing to concede on a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants if Democrats agree to airtight, strong border security.

That means not just a fence or a wall or border security at the border, but things like a system to verify citizenship inside the country and a visa tracking program, he said. If you get that, you can get a national consensus and put the immigration issue behind us.

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Krauthammer on consensus immigration reform: '[Trump] is the man who can do it' - Fox News

Ahead of President Donald Trump's first speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, we got somewhat surprising news out of the White House: Trump, whose thundering anti-immigrant rhetoric was central to his hair-raising campaign, is actually open to the kind of immigration reform his predecessor promised but couldn't deliver.

Or at least that was the "news," in the form of anonymous accounts from a sort-of off-the-record White House briefing with TV anchors in which Trump said some vague stuff about how "the time is right for an immigration bill."

Then came the speech, which was anything but the anonymously-assured "departure" from Trump's cold, hard stance on immigration. He labeled immigrants as a drag on the economy and a threat to national security. He hinted at a shift to a "merit-based system" of immigration, the right's longstanding euphemism for allowing fewer people to come to the country as family members of U.S. citizens. And even as the president urged Congress to reduce "lower-skilled immigration," it's not clear if Team Trump is even sold on the idea of increasing visas for high-skilled immigrants Trump chief strategistSteve Bannon, for instance, worries even those immigrants could threaten our "civic society."

Not a peep about a legal pathway for the millions of undocumented immigrants who aren't criminals and have deep ties to the country. Here's most of what Trump had to say about immigration reform in his speech:

It will save countless dollars, raise workers' wages, and help struggling families, including immigrant families enter the middle class. And they will do it quickly, and they will be very, very happy indeed.

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 nation's security, and to restore respect for our laws."

But a departure from the Trump script it was not.

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Trump Promises "Immigration Reform" That Will Make People "Very, Very Happy" - San Antonio Current

There were two important points related to immigration in last nights speech. The first is that the media hype about Trump possibly floating an amnesty plan was nonsense. It was driven by comments from the president himself to reporters earlier in the day that hed be open to a deal that offered a non-citizenship amnesty to non-violent illegal aliens and a regular citizenship amnesty for the DACAs (illegals who came before age 16 whom Obama lawlessly amnestied). I dont think that was planned; hes seemed to embrace a Jeb-like immigration plan in past off-the-cuff comments, only to back away when speaking formally, and that seems to be what happened. Taking this seriously was wishful thinking by the media and paranoia by immigration hawks (including myself) though the paranoia, or better, eternal vigilance, is always necessary.

The more important takeaway was his emphasis on the jobs impact of immigration, and legal immigration specifically. Yes, he highlighted the national security and public safety aspects of the issue, recognizing Jamiel Shaw and others whove lost loved ones to illegal-alien criminals apprehended then released by the authorities. But he also said By finally enforcing our immigration laws, we will raise wages, help the unemployed, save billions of dollars, and make our communities safer for everyone.

But going beyond illegal immigration, he also said, Protecting our workers also means reforming our system of legal immigration. The current, outdated system depresses wages for our poorest workers, and puts great pressure on taxpayers. He called for a merit-based system more like that of Canada or Australia, one that emphasizes skills and education rather than family connections. This seemed to be an implicit endorsement of at least the general approach that Tom Cotton and David Perdue have taken in their RAISE Act to prune back family immigration rights to spouses and minor children of Americans and legal residents.

It was important, both for policy and politics, that he included to improve jobs and wages for Americans in the goals of immigration reform, along with to strengthen our nations security, and to restore respect for our laws. Most illegal aliens, let alone legal immigrants, arent bad hombres, but the mass admission of even good hombres is bad for American workers. To flesh out that policy, it would help to see some emphasis on worksite enforcement and E-Verify, to go along with arresting and deporting criminals.

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Immigration in Trump's Quasi-SOTU - National Review

President Trump on Tuesday saidhe is open to an immigration reform billthat could provide a pathway to legal status but not citizenship for potentially millions of people who are in the United States illegally but have not committed serious crimes.

At a private White House luncheon with television news anchors, Trump signaled an openness to a compromise that would represent a softening fromthe crackdown on all undocumented immigrants that he promised during his campaign and that his more hard-line supporters have long advocated.

The time is right for an immigration bill as long as there is compromise on both sides, Trump told the anchors. His comments, reported by severalof the journalists present, were confirmed by an attendee of the luncheon.

Trump said he hopes both sides can come together to draft legislation in his first term that holistically addresses the countrys immigration system, which has been the subject of intense and polarizing debate in Washington for more than a decade.

The comments were particularly striking given Trumps long history of criticism of U.S. immigration policy and a presidential campaign centered on talk of mass deportations of the estimated 11million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

The remarks came shortly before he met at the White House with family members of Americans killed by illegal immigrants. Trump also invited those family members to attend his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, part of an emotional appeal by the president and his administration to build support for stronger border-control measures.

[Trump prepares to address a divided audience: The Republican Congress]

At the meeting with television anchors, Trump suggested he is willing to address legal status for those who are in the country illegally but have not committed crimes. But he would not necessarily support a pathway to citizenship, except perhaps for Dreamers, who were brought into the country illegally as children, according to a report by CNNs Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper, who attended the luncheon.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House principal deputy press secretary, said she could not confirm Trumps comments in the private luncheon.

The president has been very clear in his process that the immigration system is broken and needs massive reform, and hes made clear that hes open to having conversations about that moving forward, Sanders said in a Tuesday afternoon briefing with reporters. Right now his primary focus, as he has made [clear] over and over again, is border control and security at the border.

Trump has vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and increase funding for federal law enforcement efforts in border areas. He also has instructed the Department of Homeland Security to round up and deport those in this country illegally who have committed serious crimes or caused violence.

The president likened recent immigration raids to a military operation, although Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly made clear the military was not involved in conducting them.

[Trump touts recent immigration raids, calls them 'a military operation']

It is unclear whether Trump will follow through on pursuing an immigration compromise. The president in the past has made comments, in private or in media interviews, that have not been borne out by his administrations policies. For example, he has yet to follow through on his pledge to investigate alleged voter fraud in the 2016 election.

In early February, Trump expressed openness to revisiting past immigration reform efforts, including the failed 2013 Gang of Eight bill, which drew opposition from Republicans. At a meeting with moderate Democratic senators, Trump told them he thought that bill was something he was interested in revisiting, according to the senators.

The White House later denied that Trump was open to the legislation and said that he considered the bill to be amnesty.

After his meeting with the anchors Tuesday, Trump met in the Oval Office with Jamiel Shaw Sr., whose son was shot by a gang member in Los Angeles in 2008, and Jessica Davis and Susan Oliver, who were married to California police officers killed in the line of duty in 2014.

Their presence in the presidential box in the House chamber Tuesday evening represented a pointed message about the costs of illegal immigration a week after the DHS rolled out sweeping new enforcement guidelines. Trump said the measures are aimed at ramping up the deportations of immigrants who present a public safety risk, part of a broader effort that includes plans for a border wall with Mexico and attempts to restrict refugees from seven majority-Muslim nations.

Trumps spotlight on the victims families has sparked an outcry among those who charge that the president is exaggerating the risks to sow public fear and make his proposals more politically expedient. Studies have shown that immigrants, including the estimated 11million living in this country illegally, have lower crime rates than the native-born population.

It is consistent with the campaign and also with the political tone of the executive orders he signed, said Randy Capps, director of research at the Migration Policy Institute. They are very clearly trying to highlight a criminal element that does exist in the unauthorized population. But they are implying its a broad population, when we believe its a narrow population from the statistics weve seen.

Proponents of stricter immigration policies said the president is trying to reframe the debate by focusing it around the harmful effects that U.S. immigration laws can have on Americans.

The media tends to cover immigration issues through the frame of how it impacts everybody but actual citizens of the United States, Stephen Miller, Trumps senior policy adviser, said in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek published Tuesday.

In many cases, immigrants convicted of crimes are released from federal custody because of a Supreme Court ruling that prevents indefinite detention if their countries will not accept them back.

In other cases, local jurisdictions known as sanctuary cities have passed laws that prohibit officials from sharing information with federal authorities about illegal immigrants who pass through the judicial system. In 2015, Kathryn Steinle, a San Francisco woman, was shot and killed by an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who had been deported five times, a case that drew national attention.

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Trump says he is open to immigration compromise that provides a pathway to legal status - Washington Post