Republican senators to huddle with Trump on immigration

A group of Republican senators is scheduled to meet with President Trump on Tuesday afternoon to discuss a forthcoming immigration plan from the White House.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told Fox News the “big” legislative package aims to reduce illegal immigration and implement a merit-based visa system that would favor workers over family members sponsored by their U.S. citizen or permanent-resident relatives.

Conway said the proposal would also end the visa lottery system, which Trump has railed against since taking office over two years ago.{mosads}

She added that relief for immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children “could be” on the table.

The meeting comes as Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is preparing to release his own immigration proposal, which has been in the works for months.

But there is skepticism in Washington about the prospects of a comprehensive immigration deal becoming law. Trump’s last immigration proposal fell apart in late 2017 after the White House insisted on cuts to immigrant visas that Democrats and many Republicans would not accept.

The president’s hard-line immigration policies have consistently angered Capitol Hill Democrats.

Trump triggered the longest government shutdown in U.S. history late in 2018 over his demands that border wall funding be included in a spending deal. He then circumvented lawmakers to build the barrier on his own, a move that has been challenged in court.

The administration also received widespread backlash last year for separating migrant children from their parents and guardians, eventually curtailing the policy amid public outcry.

In the past few months, Trump has also floated the possibility of sending migrants to sanctuary cities that do not help federal authorities in enforcing immigration laws and proposed ways to curtail migrants’ ability to seek asylum.

White House policy adviser Stephen Miller has played an influential role in implementing the administration’s strict immigration policies, even helping to engineer a purge of top officials at the Department of Homeland Security who had been accused of slow-walking the plans, and his response to the Kushner plan is being closely watched in immigration circles.