Trump now OK with citizenship for illegal childhood arrivals . . . if he gets $25 billion for the wall

For all the talk during the campaign that Trump was anti-immigration, anti-Mexicans and whatever else, his actual policy proposals have never really supported that. He's serious about border security (although there are credible arguments that a wall is not the most effective tactic in getting there), but he seems to want to fix the law to make it work better for everyone as much as he wants to impose draconian enforcement of existing law. Up until late last night, it seemed Trump's position on illegal childhood arrivals was that there should be a provision in the law allowing for renewable legal status, but no citizenship. Today? Apparently the art of the deal now requires a much bigger offer up front, but also a big ask in return:

President Donald Trump on Wednesday previewed his outline for an immigration bill that he will promote next week, saying he wants $25 billion to build a border wall and is open to granting citizenship to illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Trump said he was optimistic he could come to an agreement with both Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Congress that would appeal to hardliners seeking tougher rules for immigrants while also preventing the roughly 700,000 “Dreamers” from being deported. “Tell them not to be concerned, ok? Tell them not to worry. We’re going to solve the problem. It’s up to the Democrats, but they (the Dreamers) should not be concerned,” Trump told reporters during an impromptu question-and-answer session at the White House.

Thinking like a negotiator - specifically like a Trump-style negotiator - here's what this sounds like to me: Trump saw what happened to Chuck Schumer earlier this week when he caved on the shutdown without getting a fix to DACA. The illegals and the amnesty people raked Schumer over the coals pretty good, and Trump knows that Schumer is under pressure from them, above all else, to get a fix to immigration law that allows the illegal childhood arrivals (or the "Dreamers" if you prefer to use Obama's propaganda language) to stay in the U.S. legally. Just a day or two ago, Trump was only offering renewable legal status. That's better than what they have now, but it's still not citizenship, which would solve their problem permanently. So why not just ahead and offer citizenship? What that does is take the pressure off Trump and put it squarely on Schumer, whose base wants that more than anything. They probably want citizenship for illegal childhood arrivals even more than they want to prevent the wall from being built.

So if Schumer refuses the offer because he doesn't want to agree to the money for the wall, whose base is mad? Trump's or Schumer's? To my money, clearly Schumers's. The border hawks among Trump's supporters oppose ignoring the law for people who flagantly violated our laws in coming here. But even most of the strongest border hawks recognize that childhood arrivals are in a different category because their illegal entry here wasn't their choice, and they had no say in the matter. Basically Trump is floating an idea that I think Schumer will have a very difficult time saying no to, especially after what happened to him with the shutdown cave this week. And in truth, I don't think Trump really opposes a path to citizenship for illegal childhood arrivals, so he's not offering anything he wouldn't sign anyway if it was put on his desk. For me, I think a solution that lets them stay here legally without a path to citizenship would be the better way to go, since there still were laws broken, and we don't want to incentivize future illegals to do the same thing with their children. But if we really get serious about border security, maybe we don't have as much of a problem with it in the future anyway. Your move, Chuck.

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