The White House is looking to give amnesty to so-called Dreamers only in exchange for a hard-line immigration wish list, according to a Tuesday report from McClatchy.
The report said that a document crafted by senior White House aide Stephen Miller, an immigration hawk, outlines what the Trump administration is seeking in an immigration deal: more immigration officers, decreased legal immigration, and several other demands.
McClatchy quoted a Democratic congressional aide saying that the proposal “does not reflect the Pelosi/Schumer agreement with the President whatsoever.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer met with President Trump weeks ago. The top Congressional Democrats claimed that the president agreed to a deal that would legalize the roughly 800,000 illegal immigrants protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program without securing border wall funding.
The McClatchy report said that the White House document calls for reducing legal immigration by prioritizing merit-based immigration, hiring thousands more immigration enforcement officials, implementing e-verify (a system that allows businesses to check the immigration status of applicants), making it harder for immigrants to gain asylum, and hiring more immigration judges.
The document was distributed to some members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, according to the report.