Donald Trump said on Thursday he was “fairly close” to a deal with Democrats to protect young undocumented migrants brought to the US as children, as his second attempt to reach across the aisle in as many weeks caused shockwaves in Washington.

The president’s growing willingness to work with his opponents has sown confusion, threatened to upend the balance of power and provoked a rare backlash from elements of his populist base.

Trump’s remarks on immigration unfolded in characteristically haphazard fashion, with a series of tweets and off-the-cuff remarks to reporters as he flew from Washington to Florida to visit those affected by Hurricane Irma.

Seeming to confirm the framework of the agreement described by senior Democrats on Wednesday night, the president said: “We’re working on a plan for Daca” – Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program – which he cancelled last week.

The deal would include “massive border security”, Trump added. “Daca now and the wall very soon, but the wall will happen.” Construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border was a central tenet of his election campaign, but the president has made little progress toward making it a reality.

After his return from Florida, Trump told reporters the wall would be a part of negotiations with Democrats. “If the Democrats aren’t going to approve it then we’re not going to do what they want,” he said.

Asked in the morning if he favored amnesty for the 690,000 young undocumented migrants with Daca status, which protects against deportation and gives access to work permits, Trump shouted back: “The word is Daca.”



Later, on Air Force One, the White House spokesperson Lindsay Walters rejected the idea Trump was calling for amnesty for the so-called Dreamers. “As we have said in the past, there will be no amnesty,” Walters said. “Absolutely by no means will this White House discuss amnesty and the president has made it clear how he feels about no amnesty.”

After landing in Florida, Trump said: “We’re not looking at citizenship. We’re not looking at amnesty. We’re looking at allowing people to stay here.”

The twists and turns began when the Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, dined on Chinese food and chocolate pie with Trump at the White House on Wednesday night. The pair said they reached an agreement that included increased border security, but excluded additions to the border wall between the US and Mexico.

In four tweets on Thursday morning, Trump echoed details of the agreement he was reported to have reached but denied it had been finalized. “No deal was made last night,” he wrote, before explaining why Dreamers should be protected and referencing increased border security.

In a joint statement on Thursday morning, Schumer and Pelosi said Trump’s tweets were “not inconsistent with the agreement reached last night”.

“We agreed that the president would support enshrining Daca protections into law and encourage the House and Senate to act,” they said. “What remains to be negotiated are the details of border security, with a mutual goal of finalizing all details as soon as possible. While both sides agreed that the wall would not be any part of this agreement, the president made clear he intends to pursue it at a later time, and we made clear we would continue to oppose it.”

They added that possible border security proposals discussed included “new technology, drones, air support, sensor equipment, rebuilding roads along the border and the bipartisan McCaul-Thompson bill”, an immigration measure.

Speaking later at a weekly Capitol Hill press conference, Pelosi said “amnesty” was not discussed. She also reiterated that the president had agreed to use the bipartisan Dream Act as a legislative framework.

“We’re not having two different kinds of people live here,” Pelosi said. “It’s not even second-class citizenship because it isn’t citizenship.”

Earlier Trump said he had spoken to the congressional Republican leaders Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell about the proposals, and they were both “on board”.

Ryan and McConnell – who were frozen out just last week when Pelosi and Schumer brokered a deal on the debt ceiling and disaster relief – seemed less certain.

At his weekly press conference, Ryan, the House speaker, said: “The president wasn’t negotiating a deal last night. The president was talking with Democratic leaders to get their perspectives.”

He insisted: “There is no agreement. I think the president understands that he has to work with the congressional majorities to get any kind of legislative solution.”

In a statement, McConnell, the Senate majority leader, said he looked forward to receiving “the Trump administration’s legislative proposal”.

“As Congress debates the best ways to address illegal immigration through strong border security and interior enforcement, Daca should be part of those discussions,” he said.

There is broad public support for action to protect Dreamers. In a Politico-Morning Consult poll last week, 54% said Congress should pass legislation that allows Daca recipients to stay and be granted a path to citizenship.

However, on Thursday, the hard-right Breitbart website, run by Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, ran the headline “Amnesty Don”. The conservative commentator Ann Coulter tweeted: “At this point, who DOESN’T want Trump impeached?”

The Iowa Republican Steve King, one of the most vocal opponents in Congress of immigration reform, told CNN the president was going back on “a straight-up promise all the way through his campaign”.

“What it means is that the base will leave him,” he said.

Democratic leaders held the line against a border wall. “We’re for sensible border security,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “There are a lot more effective ways for securing the border than a wall. It’s a medieval solution for a modern problem – a Game of Thrones idea for a world that is a lot closer to Star Wars.”

It was Trump who extended Wednesday night’s invitation to Schumer and Pelosi, according to a source familiar with the meeting. Assuming all Democrats in the House were in favor of any Daca deal, a bill would still require the support of 121 Republicans – half the Republican conference.

A coalition of Latino organisations went ahead with a small march and rally outside the White House on Thursday and were skeptical about claims of a deal.

Juan Cartagena, president and general counsel of Latino Justice, said: “Like my people, I’ve lost any confidence in what Trump says. It goes in different directions. I think at the end of the day he’s trying to make deals because his popularity is so low he has to show some effectuality.”

Jessica González-Rojas, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, said: “We are optimistic there are conversations happening but we will continue to fight for a clean Daca without any compromises over deepened border security or a wall.

“We understand there are some compromises on the table – we’re not going to stand for it. We are going to hold our democratically elected representatives accountable.”