White House outlines Trump's immigration proposal

In recent weeks, President Trump has told lawmakers he would sign any immigration measure that Congress sent him but also flatly rejected a draft of a deal negotiated by six senators.

Now, the White House is laying out the specific elements it wants to see from a bill offering permanent protection for people in the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

A one-page memo sent to congressional Republicans Thursday afternoon backs a 10- to 12-year path to citizenship for not just the roughly 700,000 enrolled in the expiring DACA program but for other "DACA-eligible illegal immigrants" who are in the U.S. illegally and were brought to the country as children. The White House estimates that could cover up to 1.8 million people.

In exchange, the White House wants an immigration measure to include $25 billion for a border wall, though the memo concedes that border security "takes a combination of physical infrastructure, technology, personnel, [and] resources." In other words, not necessarily the coast-to-coast physical structure on the Southern border that Trump promised at campaign rallies.

The White House also wants changes to the legal immigration system, including policies that prioritize family members "to spouses and minor children only." And the administration wants to completely eliminate the visa lottery system, which the memo says "is riddled with fraud and abuse and does not serve the national interest."

The memo mirrors the broad priorities that White House legislative affairs director Marc Short, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and other Trump administration officials have been outlining for weeks. But as President Trump has repeatedly shifted his public statements on any immigration measure, congressional leaders have been increasingly anxious for more clarification on what the White House wants from an eventual bill.