A single word in the English language is about to cause President Trump a lot of problems.
The president’s response Thursday to a question about his hopes for undocumented youth underscored a struggle Republicans have faced for decades: disagreements over what constitutes “amnesty” for people living in the U.S. illegally.
“We are not looking at citizenship. We are not looking at amnesty. We are looking at allowing people to stay here,” Trump told members of the media during a visit to Fort Myers, Fla.
His comments came less than an hour after deputy White House press secretary Lindsay Walters refused to “litigate what the definition of amnesty is” during a gaggle with reporters aboard Air Force One.
“The Trump administration will not be discussing amnesty. What the Trump administration will discuss is a responsible path forward in immigration reform that could include legal citizenship over a period of time,” Walters had said.
Both Walters and Trump were responding to questions about a discussion that took place Wednesday evening when the president invited Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to join him for dinner. The top Democrats issued a statement afterward saying Trump had agreed to back legislation that would “enshrine… into law” the legal status of nearly 800,000 young illegal immigrants. The president would not demand border wall funding in the same bill, Schumer and Pelosi asserted.
The problem is that Trump’s response to the Democratic duo’s claim – that he may be open to allowing so-called Dreamers to remain in the U.S. – fits the definition of what some of his supporters would consider amnesty.
Republicans who have previously said they oppose amnesty for unauthorized immigrants but support legal protections or the creation of a path to citizenship for such individuals have almost always elicited charges of hypocrisy from others who define amnesty as both forgiving the crime of unlawful entry and rewarding those who committed it.
Take, for example, the myriad definitions a former Slate reporter received when she asked GOP lawmakers in 2014 to put into no uncertain terms what amnesty means:
“Amnesty is a forgiveness by definition and there are many different types of that so I’m not going to get into trying to define it,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia.
“Amnesty to me is totally forgiving or granting a pardon to people who’ve broken the law,” said Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
“It would be a pathway to citizenship,” said Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas.
“I think the term means anything that waives part of the current law and lets people stay,” said Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri.
Those who backed Trump during the 2016 election because of his hardline positions on immigration said he would be wise to make explicit demands ahead of time if his desire is to accomplish bipartisan immigration reform.
“Before they do anything, the White House needs to have a clear list of what it is they want and what it is Trump would or wouldn’t sign, and then they need to lay that out there for the American people and the people they’re negotiating with,” Ira Mehlman, a spokesman with the conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform, told the Washington Examiner.
“Today the president got on the plane in Washington saying one thing and got off the plane in Florida saying another thing,” Mehlman continued. “It hurts anyone’s credibility if they’re saying one thing to people one day and saying another thing the next day.”
“This is why the administration needs to have a clear message. If Dems want to do something on behalf of the DACA recipients, then the president needs to let them know what it’s going to cost them,” he said.
Despite the confusion over his plans for DACA recipients, Trump made two things clear in his string of statements on Thursday. He still wants to build a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border and he is prepared to make concessions to get there.
The latter left some of his most steadfast supporters fuming.
“Let’s play Jeopardy. Answer: An Easter egg. Question: What’s the only thing easier to roll than Donald J. Trump?” conservative columnist Ann Coulter wrote in a series of tweets Thursday.
“Trump base is blown up, destroyed, irreparable, and disillusioned beyond repair,” Iowa Congressman Steve King, who endorsed Trump last August, tweeted Wednesday night after reports emerged about the president’s meeting with Schumer and Pelosi.
Fox News personality Laura Ingraham, who had been considered for several posts within the administration, said the only deal Trump could strike without alienating a chunk of his base would include passage of the RAISE Act, mandatory E-Verify, and money for his border wall.
“Democrats’ ‘Border security’ pledge is meaningless,” she tweeted.
Trump’s political opponents made it clear early on that funding for a border wall would be a non-starter in negotiations on immigration reform. Instead, Pelosi has urged the president to endorse a legislative package that would include the DREAM Act, which aims to provide an eventual pathway to citizenship for undocumented youth, and enhanced border security measures apart from a physical wall.
A deal containing those conditions seemed plausible Thursday when Trump told reporters that he and congressional leaders were “fairly close” to reaching an agreement on DACA that would include “massive border security.”
“The wall will come later,” he added.
Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, a longtime Trump confidant who has spoken favorably of the 2013 “Gang of Eight” immigration bill, told the Washington Examiner he was pleased to see the president softening his stance on immigration even if it comes at the risk of alienating some of supporters.
“He had been given bad advice by a lot of people in the White House to take a more confrontational approach and I think he realized that was not working,” Ruddy said. “This is a brilliant strategy by [Trump] to reach across the aisle and do what other presidents used to do but that Obama didn’t.”
