Trump will support path to citizenship for DACA Dreamer immigrants

Nicholas Kamm | AFP | Getty Images

President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, eastern Switzerland, on January 25, 2018.

Slow progress on reaching a bipartisan immigration deal contributed to Congress letting government funding lapse recently for three days. Senators expressed dismay that Trump’s demands for a possible deal appeared to shift under the influence of his advisors, particularly Miller.

McConnell’s commitment to bring an immigration bill to the chamber’s floor helped to end an impasse in the Senate. However, it is still unclear what type of proposal could pass both the Senate and the more conservative House.

A previous plan drafted by bipartisan senators that Trump rejected this month included a path to citizenship.

Anna Galland, civic action director at MoveOn.org, criticized the president’s proposal, saying in a statement that it would be dead on arrival in Congress. Galland asserted that Trump’s proposal holds the “futures of 800,000 Dreamers hostage in order to deport their loved ones and waste taxpayer money on the wall he promised Mexico would pay for.”

She argued that Trump’s actions suggest that the president is continuing to take an anti-immigrant hard line stance and “doesn’t actually want a deal.”

“Remember: it’s Trump who unilaterally chose to rescind DACA. If he cared about Dreamers, Trump could unilaterally decide to keep it in place. His proposal today isn’t a bill of love; it’s a bill of cruelty that is no basis for a deal and should be dead on arrival in Congress,” she said.

Programming note: CNBC’s exclusive interview with Trump will air on “Squawk Box” at 6 a.m., ET, on Friday.

— CNBC’s Ylan Mui contributed reporting to this article.