Senate

Warren rips Trump immigration proposal: It’s ‘insulting’

by Brandon Carter - 01/25/18 7:30 PM ET

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) ripped the immigration proposal unveiled by President Trump’s White House on Thursday, calling the plan “insulting.”

“By ending DACA, @realdonaldtrump subjected 800k Dreamers to deportation. Now he wants to hold them hostage to Steven Miller’s anti-immigrant wish list. It’s insulting,” Warren wrote on Twitter. “We already have a bipartisan solution to the Trump-created crisis: it’s called the Dream Act. #DreamActNow”

By ending DACA, @realdonaldtrump subjected 800k Dreamers to deportation. Now he wants to hold them hostage to Steven Miller’s anti-immigrant wish list. It’s insulting. We already have a bipartisan solution to the Trump-created crisis: it’s called the Dream Act. #DreamActNow

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) January 25, 2018

The White House unveiled details of the immigration plan Thursday. The plan includes a path to citizenship for 1.8 million immigrants who are eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, even if they have not applied.

{mosads}In exchange for those protections, Trump will seek $25 billion in funding for his wall and other border security measures along the U.S.-Mexico border. The money would be placed in a trust fund, preventing it from being reallocated by future Congresses.

The plan also includes changes to the legal immigration system, including barring U.S. citizens and permanent residents from sponsoring any family members for migration to the U.S. besides spouses and minor children.

The plan has won some praise from Republicans, including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Sen. David Purdue (R-Ga.).

But Trump’s proposal has drawn heat from some conservatives, including the conservative Heritage Action group, which called the plan a “nonstarter.”

Trump’s plan was also panned by Democrats, with Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) calling it “dead on arrival” and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) saying there is “no public policy justification” for the proposed legal immigration changes.