According to The Hill, Trump told GOP senators today that he doesn’t expect a 2,200 mile wall to be part of the immigration deal:
President Trump on Thursday laid out his demands for an immigration deal to Republican senators, making clear he doesn’t expect Congress to build a physical 2,200-mile concrete wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Instead, the president wants Congress to ratchet up security along the border by ratcheting up patrols, surveillance and fencing, in return for relief for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program recipients in an immigration deal that could be tied to the 2018 spending bill.
“People want to paint that it’s some 2,000-mile long, 30-foot-high wall of concrete. That’s not what he means and not what he tries to say,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who met with Trump at the White House Thursday.
“There’s going to be border fencing in some areas, there’s going to be vehicular barricades, there’s going to be technology, there’s going to be greater manpower in some areas,” he added.
Lankford said Trump has been clear “in private.”
Trump has always said the wall wouldn’t be one big continuous 2,200 mile concrete barrier from Texas to California. That’s impossible to do anyway.
But Trump does expect there to be a wall on portions of the border, perhaps those areas that are most heavily traveled:
Trump told lawmakers to end chain migration and the visa lottery program as part of a possible deal with Democrats to protect an estimated 800,000 Dreamers from deportation.
He said a deal with Democrats must “secure the border with a wall” and give “our immigration officers the resources they need to stop illegal immigration” and “stop visa overstays.”
GOP lawmakers are trying to put together a final proposal for beefing up border security, ending chain migration and the visa lottery program before a meeting with Democrats planned for Tuesday.
If they actually secure the border, then I don’t care how they do it, whether it’s with a big beautiful wall or strategic fencing or manpower or whatever – just so long as they do it this time.
That said I don’t have high hopes for a bill that needs Democrats to pass, especially in an election year. They have every reason to oppose everything Trump does, especially if they plan on running on impeachment which is what I expect.
But we’ll see, perhaps the Senate can turn just enough Democrats in red states and get this done.