Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a pair of Tweets Friday that a new White House proposal on immigration reform is a wish list for “anti-immigrant hardliners.”
Schumer said the proposal shows where Trump, who proposed a legislative fix for “Dreamers” along with massive increases to border security, stands on the issue.
“As we have been urging him to do for months, the President has finally put pen to paper to show us where he stands on immigration. Unfortunately, this plan flies in the face of what most Americans believe,” the top Democrat tweeted.
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“While @realDonaldTrump finally acknowledged that the Dreamers should be allowed to stay here and become citizens, he uses them as a tool to tear apart our legal immigration system and adopt the wish list that anti-immigration hardliners have advocated for for years,” he added.
The immigration overhaul would provide a path to citizenship for nearly 1.8 million immigrants in the U.S., including the nearly 700,000 Dreamers who came to the country illegally as young children.
The minority leader’s comments come following a progressive backlash to the framework which many Democrats have said is a non-starter while accusing Trump of holding Dreamers hostage in negotiations on immigration.
Schumer had previously offered a plan similar to the new proposal, both offering the same $25 billion for funding Trump’s long-promised border wall with Mexico, in negotiations before the government shutdown over the weekend, but said this week that the funding is now “off the table.”