President Trump wants Congress to pass an immigration bill that goes beyond a solution for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that the administration rescinded on Tuesday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said on Tuesday.
“We can’t just have one tweak to the immigration system,” Sanders told reporters at the White House just hours after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the decision to rescind DACA in six months.
DACA, implemented by the Obama administration in 2012, extended legal protections to roughly 800,000 people, known as “Dreamers,” who were brought to the country illegally as children. Dreamers received a temporary reprieve from deportation and a two-year work permit once they provided their personal information to the government through the program. Trump has called on Congress to legislate a solution that will determine the fate of the Dreamers, creating an opening for Republicans and Democrats to pass a bill that contains funding for the border wall, limits on chain migration, or other GOP priorities for immigration policy that have so far not gained much traction on Capitol Hill.
“We want responsible immigration reform, and that would be part of that package and part of that process,” Sanders said of the DACA bill Trump hopes to sign.
The White House declined to provide specifics on what policies Trump would like to see the “responsible immigration reform” legislation address, beyond signaling the president would prefer to see the bill do more than just extend legal protections to Dreamers.
