Posted on January 19, 2017

Trump Signals He’s Softening on Immigration as He Says He’s ‘Working on a Plan’ That Will Make DREAMers ‘Very Happy’

Francesca Chambers, Daily Mail, January 18, 2017

President-elect Donald Trump says his administration is working on a plan that will make illegal immigrant children ‘very happy,’ and it will done in the next couple months.

Trump reiterated his plans to build a wall along the border with Mexico and crack down on unlawful immigration.

But he called the plight of children known as DREAMers, who were brought into the country illegally by their relatives ‘a very tough situation,’ indicating in an interview with Fox & Friends that he’s thinking about letting them stay.

The president-elect said in the course of his campaign for the White House that illegal immigrants of all ages would be sent out of the country. Only the ‘good’ ones would be allowed to return, Trump stated.

He vowed to overturn President Obama’s executive orders directing immigration officials to focus their efforts on deporting criminals, shielding children through his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

After some pleading from exiting President Barack Obama and immigration reform advocates, including some Republicans in Congress, Trump seemed to soften his stance.

He told Time Magazine in early December that he wanted to ‘work something out’ for illegal immigrant children, known as DREAMers.

‘I want Dreamers for our children also. We’re going to work something out. On a humanitarian basis it’s a very tough situation,’ he said. ‘We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud. But that’s a very tough situation.’

Trump revealed this morning in an interview of Fox & Friends in response to a viewer question about the creation of a ‘legal status to work for non-criminal, undocumented citizens brought here as children’ that his team was working on this issue.

‘We’re working on a plan right now. And that plan, over the next two to three months, is going to come out,’ he said. ‘And it’s a plan that’s going to be very firm, but it’s going to be a lot of heart’

Trump again said it’s ‘a very tough situation’ — ‘but I think they’re going to end up being very happy,’ he added.

‘We’re going to have great people coming into our country, people that love our country. And we’re also going to have people coming into our country merit-based.’

The incoming president suggested he’d increase the number of visas available to high-skilled workers, mentioning the inability of Harvard grads to get cleared to stay and work in Silicon Valley.

‘We’re going to have great people and people of great talent coming into our country. We’re going to have, also, merit-based. And that’s so important. We don’t have that right now,’ he stated.

At a briefing for press later in the morning Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump has a ‘very robust’ schedule planned for his first few weeks in office and it includes a review of the immigration process.

‘He is first and foremost focused on people who are here and may cause a safety issue,’ Spicer said after he was asked about DACA.

Regardless of one’s stance on immigration, he observed, ‘I think you can admit, we’ve got a problem.’