Trump offers 3-year extension of protection for ‘dreamers’ in exchange for $5.7 billion for wall; Democrats call it a ‘non-starter’

President Trump made a new offer Saturday to Democrats aimed at ending the 29-day partial government shutdown that would extend deportation protections for some immigrants in exchange for $5.7 billion in border wall funding.

Trump’s proposal is designed to ramp up pressure on Democrats by offering a reprieve on his attempts to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and temporary protected status (TPS) for immigrants from some Latin American and African nations.

Under the new proposal, the administration would allow those programs to continue — addressing a key concern of Democrats and some moderate Republicans.

It would also grant hundreds of millions of dollars for humanitarian assistance and drug detection policy and call for the hiring of thousands of new law enforcement agents to be deployed on the southern border.

“This is a common-sense compromise both parties should embrace,” Trump said. He then added: “The radical left can never control our borders. I will never let it happen.”

Trump said Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will put the legislation on the Senate floor for a vote next week.

But some Democrats rejected Trump’s offer as unacceptable before it was officially announced.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called it a “non-starter” and implored Trump to take action to open the government. Some 800,000 federal workers have been furloughed and numerous government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, have been operating at minimal staffing levels.

The shutdown is now the longest in U.S. government history.

Ahead of his remarks from the White House, Trump oversaw a naturalization ceremony in the Oval Office for five new Americans, who took the Oath of Allegiance from Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. The event aimed to underscore Trump’s support of foreigners who enter the country through legal immigration programs, even as his administration has supported policies to slash overall immigration levels.

Democrats have been under pressure from immigrant rights organizations not to give Trump funding for a wall. And Trump’s offer would not provide a path to permanent legal status — or citizenship — that many Democrats have sought in any immigration deal that would dramatically ramp up border security measures.

Pelosi said Democrats will pass legislation to re-open the government next week, after which Congress will negotiate border security. Pelosi said Democrats will also pass six bills agreed to by House and Senate negotiators.

“The President must sign these bills to re-open government immediately and stop holding the American people hostage with this senseless shutdown,” Pelosi said.

A senior House Democratic aide said Democrats were not consulted on the plan, which the aide said is “not a compromise” because it still includes Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border — the request that led to the shutdown.

Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) “must open the government today.”

Trump also could face blowback from conservatives, including prominent commentators, who have opposed any attempts to extend deportation protections from undocumented immigrants.

Axios first reported the details of Trump’s proposal.

Trump had indicated for weeks that he would not entertain an extension of DACA, which began in 2012 under President Obama and has offered renewable work permits to immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” who entered the country illegally as children. Trump had said he was hoping the Supreme Court would hear an appeal to a lower court’s injunction on his attempt to end DACA and, if the high court ruled in his favor, that ending the program would give him more leverage in talks with Democrats over the future of the Dreamers.

But the Supreme Court signaled Friday that it might not take the case. That would mean that Trump would remain unable to end DACA, which covers about 700,000 immigrants, and some Dreamer groups have called on Democrats not to cut a deal for the wall.

The Democratic aide said the proposal Trump will make on DACA Saturday does not fully protect “dreamers” and is not a permanent solution to the issue.

On TPS, Trump has declared an end to a program that has offered hundreds of thousands of immigrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Haiti and Sudan the right to remain in the United States after they were uprooted from their home countries during national disasters and other emergencies. But Trump’s move also has been enjoined by federal courts.

Trump told reporters at the White House on Saturday morning that he will make an “important statement” that afternoon, and continued to point to a new caravan of Central American migrants crossing into Mexico from Guatemala that was the subject of segments this week on “Fox & Friends”as one reason for the wall.