President Trump said Friday that congressional Democrats don’t care about the fate of young illegal immigrants and are resisting a solution with the White House for political purposes.
“We want to make a deal,” Mr. Trump told reporters while touring a Customs and Border Protection National Training Center in Sterling, Virginia. “I think they want to use it for political purposes, for elections. I really am not happy with the way it’s going, from the standpoint of the Democrats.”
Referring to an expiring amnesty program for illegal immigrants called DACA, the president said, “DACA is something that should be absolutely easy to do. And I don’t think the Democrats want to take care of the DACA recipients.”
“And think of it, they’ve given up on DACA and that’s supposed to be theirs, but it’s ours because we’re the ones that are taking care of DACA, not them,” Mr. Trump said.
He visited the training center before flying off with first lady Melania Trump on Air Force One to his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, for the weekend.
The president told federal workers at the training center that the Republican Party “is with you 100 percent.”
Congress is facing a deadline of next Friday to reach agreement on a deal for the illegal immigrants and to keep the government open.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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