President Trump said Monday that congressional Democrats have “let down” young illegal immigrants in the U.S. by failing to accept his offer to fix an Obama-era program that granted them amnesty from deportation.
“The Democrats have really let them down,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House. “They really let them down. It’s a shame. And now people are taking advantage of DACA and that’s a shame.”
He was referring to a debate in Congress over some 700,000 illegal immigrants in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and millions of other Dreamers who didn’t sign up for DACA.
The president had offered a deal to grant a full pathway to citizenship to up to 1.8 million illegal immigrants in exchange for ending the visa lottery, limiting so-called “chain migration” among families of immigrants and spending $25 billion to build more border fencing.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump said Democrats “blew it” and he was done negotiating.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.