President Donald Trump on Friday said he would seek sweeping changes to U.S. immigration policy through an executive order, suggesting he might create a “road to citizenship” for certain migrants brought to the country illegally as children and shift the criteria for new arrivals to a “merit-based” system.
The new effort will be unveiled “over the next four weeks,” Trump said in an interview with Telemundo.
Critics including high-profile members of the president’s own party immediately questioned whether he has the legal authority to overhaul immigration laws without passing legislation through Congress.
And the White House quickly issued a clarification on the president’s suggestion he’d unilaterally open a path to citizenship for children who were brought to the U.S. and are protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, indicating instead that Trump would seek a deal with Congress.
“The president has long said he is willing to work with Congress on a negotiated legislative solution to DACA, one that could include citizenship, along with strong border security and permanent merit-based reforms,” Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere said in a statement.
“This does not include amnesty. Unfortunately, Democrats have continually refused these offers as they are opposed to anything other than totally open borders.”
Trump, who has been repeatedly stymied on Capitol Hill as he has pursued efforts to toughen immigration criteria, said he believed the Supreme Court had provided him new powers when it rejected the administration’s efforts to dismantle an Obama administration program providing legal status for some young migrants in the country illegally.
“We’re working out the legal complexities right now, but I’m going to be signing a very major immigration bill as an executive order, which the Supreme Court now, because of the DACA decision, has given me the power to do that,” Trump said.