A California-based restrictive immigration advocacy group will launch an ad Tuesday accusing President Donald Trump of abandoning his campaign promise to stem the tide of illegal immigration, in favor of the more permissive policies advanced by moderates like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
The ad, paid for by Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and first provided to The Daily Caller News Foundation, will run on broadcast and cable TV in Washington, D.C. and South Carolina.
“Who did the United States of America elect president, Donald Trump or Lindsey Graham?” a narrator asks in the video as images of Graham and Trump slowly meld together.
“Graham wants to expand amnesty beyond DACA to millions more here illegally, now so does Trump. Graham wants to minimize cuts to chain migration, now Trump wants to put off real cuts for over ten years,” the video continues. “What happened to the president that promised to put Americans first? Tweet Donald Trump and ask him, tell him if America wanted Graham as president we would have voted for him.”
The White House offered Thursday to concede amnesty for some 1.8 million illegal immigrants in exchange for roughly $25 billion for a border wall and restrictions to chain migration, which would not take effect for a decade. The offer, which also ends the diversity visa lottery system, alienated many of the immigration restrictionists that compromise President Donald Trump’s base, and, as the attack ad points out, resembles the bill championed by Graham.
CAPS spokesperson Toby White argued that Trump is squandering a unique political opportunity to press for meaningful immigration reform that protects the working class, citing the lack of substantive congressional immigration debate over the past decade.
“We wanted to speak for the American worker. [Trump] campaigned on making working class American great again and we saw an opportunity. Immigration is now getting discussed in a meaningful way and it finally got some legs to it and the president is using those legs to backpedal,” White told TheDCNF.
White stressed that CAPS hoped the White House and congressional Republicans would advocate for stricter border security measures such as a mandatory E-Verify system that would make it more difficult for businesses to employ illegal immigrants, absent the amnesty concessions to which Trump has already committed.
“We would like to see the American worker honored. We’d like mandatory E-Verify, an end to visa lottery, significant cuts to chain migration, and we’d like to see those in real time. I don’t know that America voted for Trump to see prosperity waiting another decade or more, the American worker voted to make America great now,” White said.
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Trump explained the rationale behind his offer in a tweet Saturday, arguing that the generosity of the offer would expose Democrats as hopelessly partisan and unwilling to compromise. He also reaffirmed his promise to find a legislative solution for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients.
I have offered DACA a wonderful deal, including a doubling in the number of recipients & a twelve year pathway to citizenship, for two reasons: (1) Because the Republicans want to fix a long time terrible problem. (2) To show that Democrats do not want to solve DACA, only use it!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2018
Obama created the DACA program through executive fiat in 2012, effectively shielding some 800,000 immigrants brought to the country illegally as children from deportation and providing them with temporary work permits. Trump’s amnesty offer would cover those so-called dreamers, as well as roughly 1 million additional illegal immigrants who are eligible for the program but never signed up.
Despite conservatives’ belief that Trump’s offer was too conciliatory, Democratic leadership has bowed to pressure from the more progressive wing of their party, rejecting the offer outright ahead of another government shutdown that will take effect Thursday if lawmakers fail to compromise on immigration legislation.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois downplayed the potential of another shutdown Sunday during a CNN interview, citing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s promise — made in the midst of the early January government shutdown — to bring an immigration bill to the floor before the next spending bill is considered.
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