The Washington Post’s editorial board says Democrats should be able to give Trump his $5 billion to build a border wall if Trump agrees to let more than 1 million younger illegal immigrants stay in the country.
The board said a deal is “within reach” on the wall, as long as both Trump and Democrats have the “spinal fortitude to face down its own most rabid partisans and take it.”
“Striking a deal that achieves that outcome should be a no-brainer for both sides,” it added. “If it means a few billion dollars to construct segments of Mr. Trump’s wall, Democrats should be able to swallow that with the knowledge that it also will have paid to safeguard so many young lives, careers and hopes.”
Funding the wall is “distasteful” for Democrats, but the board said many Democrats have supported tougher border barriers in the past. The Post also rejected Nancy Pelosi’s argument that it’s immoral to build a wall.
[Read more: Trump feuds openly with Pelosi, Schumer as border fight explodes in White House]
“The wall as Mr. Trump imagines it may be wasteful overkill, but it’s a stretch to frame it as a moral issue, as Ms. Pelosi does,” the paper wrote.
But the board said Trump needs to be able to offer a path to legal status or citizenship for more than 1 million younger immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children. It said Trump might also agree to keep hundreds of thousands of migrants here with temporary protected status.
The White House has so far not agreed to a simple exchange of a border wall for protected status. It has also pushed for an end to chain migration and the visa lottery system as part of a deal.
