WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump said Wednesday he would "love" to make an immigration deal to protect so-called "Dreamers," but wants border security concessions in exchange, including money to build his long-promised wall along the border with Mexico.
"I'd love to do a DACA deal, but we have to get something very substantial for it, including the wall" and tougher border security, Trump told reporters as he left the White House to fly to Dallas for a GOP fundraiser and a briefing on Gulf Coast hurricane relief efforts.
Trump announced in September he was terminating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program established by President Barack Obama that has protected from deportation more than 800,000 people brought to the country illegally as children.
At the time, Trump gave Congress six months to act before work permits and deportation deferrals issued under the program begin to expire on March 6.
But lawmakers have struggled to agree on how to move forward with a bill to protect the DACA recipients. They're currently negotiating with an eye toward including a compromise on the issue as part of a must-pass spending bill due for a vote in early December.
The top Democrats in the House and Senate, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said Trump made a deal with them during an Oval Office meeting in early September that he would sign a DACA bill that didn't include funding for the wall.
Earlier this month, however, the White House issued a 17-page list of principles for any deal that included building the wall, increasing the number of deportation officers, and provisions that would limit the ability of new U.S. citizens to sponsor relatives for legal status.
