WASHINGTON _ House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is providing President Donald Trump advice on how to speak to children of undocumented immigrants after he decided to gradually rescind a Obama-era program that has sheltered roughly 800,000 of them from deportation _ and apparently he is listening.
Pelosi said Trump called her Thursday morning and they discussed the six-month phaseout of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, as well as other issues that she declined to specify.
"I said ... 'Thanks for calling. The people really need reassurance from you that the six-month period is not just a period of round-up,'" she said, recounting the portion of the call that focused on DACA.
The California Democrat had earlier told her colleagues at a whip meeting Thursday about the call.
Trump did send a tweet in which he said, "For all of those (DACA) that are concerned about your status during the 6 month period, you have nothing to worry about _ No action!"
The tweet comes a day after Pelosi met with Trump at the White House, along with other top congressional leaders from both parties, and after the president sided with Democrats on a deal to package a suspension of the debt ceiling, a short-term deal to extend government funding, and aid for hurricane victims.
During that meeting, Pelosi said Trump told her and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer that he would support an immigration bill that included the DREAM Act, which would provide legal status and eventually a path to citizenship, based on certain conditions, for undocumented immigrants who would have been covered by DACA.
Trump, however, wants other things to be part of that bill, Pelosi said, noting he did not specify his demands.
Speaker Paul D. Ryan in recent days has said the GOP would be seeking enhanced border security measures in any measure to provide a solution to DACA. He said he believes Republicans and Democrats can reach a compromise within the effective six-month deadline.
"I really don't think for the most part Democrats are against border security," the Wisconsin Republican said Thursday at an event hosted by the New York Times.
If Republicans don't follow through on their promises to strike a compromise, Democrats are reserving the option to leverage fiscal deadlines that Congress is getting ready to push off to December 8 to ensure a vote on the DREAM Act.
"We'll see," Pelosi said when asked if that was a strategy Democrats planned to employ.
But Dec. 8 is not soon enough for some progressive groups, who are criticizing Pelosi and Schumer for their deal with Trump.
"Following Trump's decision to eliminate the DACA program, Democrats had a rare opportunity to force congressional action on the Dream Act to protect immigrant youth," leaders of the National Immigration Law Center, United We Dream, and Indivisible Project said in a statement. "They had the leverage of a packed September agenda, full of must-pass bills and momentum of an activated grassroots base that is doing their part to fight for immigrants targeted by Trump. ... And yet Democratic leaders Schumer and Pelosi instead chose to make a deal with Trump, with a vague promise of action on the Dream Act down the road."
Pelosi said at her Thursday press conference that Democrats decided not to support an 18-month extension of the debt ceiling, as the GOP was seeking, because it would have destroyed any negotiating leverage they would have.
"The fact that they brought up the CR really strengthened our hand in the three months," she said.
