Trump offers dreamers 1.8m visas in exchange for funding for wall

The White House has announced the outline of an immigration plan that would allow 1.8m immigrants to become US citizens in exchange for a $25bn budget to fund a border wall with México and tighter controls on legal immigration.

The proposed bill is to be unveiled on Monday but details emerged at a conference call on Thursday between White House policy chief Stephen Miller and Republican congressional aides, with opposition Democrats and civil liberties groups quick to attack the proposals.

The plan is to allow 1.8m people to become US citizens over a 10-12 year period. The total includes 700,000 “Dreamers” who entered the country illegally as children and were put under the wing of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme (DACA).

The other 1.1m would be people who did not apply for DACA would still be eligible for the programme.

In exchange for this concession to Democrat demands over the Dreamers programme, the White House wants a $25bn budget to fund the wall separating Mexico and the US. This is part of Trump’s plan to crack down on illegal immigration and it has been one of his first promises for his years in office.

Aside from wanting to reduce illegal immigration Trump’s new proposal will also tighten the doors on legal immigrants with a change in the “chain immigration” that allows green card holders to extend their visas to their families. If the new bill is approved US citizens will only be allowed to get visas for their spouses and children (only minors).

Furthermore, the White House also wants to cut the visa lottery programme that currently grants 50,000 visas randomly throughout the world to make immigration more diverse. Trump intends to replace the system with another one that has allocations for certain nationalities or a set of skill requirements.

Immigrant advocacy group America's Voice said the White House proposal would halve legal immigration overall by limiting which family members can be sponsored by new citizens and permanent legal residents.

The president made comments to a group of reporters before parting to the World Economic Forum in Davos and said that he was going to allow Dreamers to “morph into” citizens overtime.

“Whatever they’re doing, if they do a great job, I think it’s a nice thing to have the incentive of, after a period of years, being able to become a citizen.”

Although the plans still need to be discussed on Monday in Congress. So far, the outline of the plan has already received criticism from Democrats.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the plan was "an act of staggering cowardice which attempts to hold the Dreamers hostage to a hateful anti-immigrant scheme."

On Thursday she said that the proposed framework was "part of the Trump Administration's unmistakable campaign to make America white again."

Senator Dick Durbin said, "Dreamers should not be held hostage to President Trump's crusade to tear families apart and waste billions of American tax dollars on an ineffective wall.”

Republican US Senator Tom Cotton said, "The president's framework is generous and humane, while also being responsible."

Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, said the Republican plan was deceptive. "This is the play being run from the White House: 'You guys are desperate for Dreamer relief. We want most of our agenda and a little bit of yours," he told the LA Times, adding that the move would "destroy what has been the cornerstone of our immigration system."

The American Civil Liberties Union called the White House plan a "hateful, xenophobic immigration proposal that would slash legal immigration to levels not seen since the racial quotas of the 1920s".