A political action committee that pushes for stricter immigration controls said Thursday it is launching a campaign to draft conservative writer Ann Coulter to challenge President Trump.
Americans for Legal Immigration PAC has been among those most critical of Mr. Trump’s latest immigration proposal that includes temporary legal status for some 700,000 illegal immigrant “Dreamers” now protected by the Obama-era DACA program.
ALIPAC, which had been a backer of Mr. Trump’s in the 2016 election, says it’s lost faith and is now seeking a new champion.
“I hope Ann Coulter will give serious consideration to running against Trump in the primary and run on a MAGA platform offering conservative voters a pledge to keep her promises … unlike Trump!” said William Gheen, president of ALIPAC.
Ms. Coulter was appreciative but demurred.
“It’s an honor to be asked by such a patriotic and important organization. They are obviously correct that would make a tremendous president. But unfortunately, I’m against women working,” she told The Washington Times.
Mr. Gheen said he hoped a challenge to Mr. Trump would convince the president to worry about his base voters as he prepared for re-election, and perhaps force him to abandon his latest immigration plans.
Mr. Trump has offered what he calls a good faith compromise that would offer temporary legal status for Dreamers and 300,000 other migrants currently here under the humanitarian Temporary Protected Status program, which is designed to help people whose countries have been ravaged by war or natural disasters.
In exchange, Mr. Trump has asked for $5.7 billion in border wall money.
He’s also proposed a new program to allow Central American children to apply for asylum in the U.S. from their home countries. But the tradeoff is that they would be restricted from sneaking into the U.S. and applying from here.
That plan is due for an initial test vote in the Senate later Thursday.
Ms. Coulter has been a vociferous critic of the plan, saying Mr. Trump has broken the immigration promises he made during the campaign.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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