Trump Plans to Work with Congress on Legislation to Allow Dreamers to Stay in U.S.

People who were brought to the U.S. as children illegally, or legally, and overstayed visas, are often referred to as Dreamers. This term also encompasses roughly 700,000 DACA recipients who came to the U.S. as children before 2012 and have since been able to earn temporary work permits and protection from deportation through the DACA program.

President-elect Donald Trump recently expressed desires to work in a bipartisan manner with lawmakers to pass legislation that will allow Dreamers to stay in the U.S. legally. As DACA faces a ruling from the Supreme Court in 2025 that is likely to strike the program down due to the way it was created through executive order, the urgency for a permanent legislative solution for Dreamers is increasing.

See Trump’s comments below on Dreamers during a recent interview with Kristen Welker of NBC News:

KRISTEN WELKER:

What about dreamers, sir? Dreamers, who were brought to this country illegally as children. You said once back in 2017 they, quote, “Shouldn’t be very worried about being deported.” Should they be worried now?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:

The dreamers are going to come later, and we have to do something about the dreamers because these are people that have been brought here at a very young age. And many of these are middle-aged people now. They don’t even speak the language of their country. And yes, we’re going to do something about the dreamers. And —

KRISTEN WELKER:

What does that mean? What are you going to do?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:

I will work with the Democrats on a plan. And if we can come up with a plan, but the Democrats have made it very, very difficult to do anything. Republicans are very open to the dreamers. The dreamers, we’re talking many years ago they were brought into this country. Many years ago. Some of them are no longer young people. And in many cases, they’ve become successful. They have great jobs. In some cases they have small businesses. Some cases they might have large businesses. And we’re going to have to do something with them. And —

KRISTEN WELKER:

You want them to be able to stay, that’s what you’re saying?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:

I do. I want to be able to work something out, and it should’ve been able to be worked out over the last three or four years and it never got worked out. You know, Biden could’ve done it because he controlled, you know, Congress to a certain extent, right? He could’ve done something, but they didn’t do it. I never understood why because they always seemed to want to do it, but then when it comes down to it, they don’t. I think we can work with the Democrats and work something out.

This is not the first time that Trump has advocated for a solution for Dreamers. Here are a few examples:

• The Trump Administration released an immigration framework that included a 10-12 year path to citizenship for over 1.8 million Dreamers.
• Trump hosted a bipartisan meeting of key legislators in an effort to broker an immigration and border security deal, with a focus on Dreamers.
• Trump considered vetoing an omnibus budget bill because it did not include a solution for Dreamers and border wall funding.

Although Trump himself rescinded DACA in 2017 as it was facing lawsuits stating that it was created through “executive overreach,” when he did so, he urged Congress to “do its job” and pass a permanent legislative solution for Dreamers, placing urgency on the matter with a six-month deadline that has ultimately been extended by federal courts to the upcoming Supreme Court ruling. The program has been allowed to stand with no new applicants as it makes its way through the federal courts.

With border security and immigration serving as key pillars of Trump’s most recent campaign and his last presidency, these issues will certainly be brought to the forefront of American politics in the coming years. Hopefully, Trump will continue to place pressure on lawmakers to come up with a bipartisan solution. A sensible place to start would be a legislative solution for Dreamers, improvements to border security, asylum reform, and ID and Tax.