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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi announced they have reached a deal with President Donald Trump that would protect certain unauthorized immigrants as part of a broader border security agreement.
The two Democratic leaders made the announcement Wednesday night after a meeting with Trump. They said their agreement would not include funding for a wall along the US-Mexico border, something on which Trump campaigned fervently.
“We had a very productive meeting at the White House with the President. The discussion focused on DACA. We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that’s acceptable to both sides,” their statement read.
“We also urged the President to make permanent the cost-sharing reduction payments, and those discussions will continue,” it said.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted that “excluding the wall was certainly not agreed to.”
DACA is the Obama-era program that protects some 800,000 people living in the US illegally from being deported and allows them to work legally. Many in the program were brought to the US as young children. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had announced last week that the program would be phased out within six months, giving Congress time to act on the issue.
A White House official said the trio also discussed tax reform, infrastructure, and trade issues. A separate statement from the White House called the deal “a positive step toward the President’s strong committment to bipartisan solutions for the issues most important to all Americans.”
Wednesday night’s meeting followed another deal Trump reached with Schumer and Pelosi last week, in which he agreed to a hurricane-relief package and an extension of the debt ceiling and continuing resolution to keep the government funded through December 15. Trump signed the legislation days later.
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