President Donald Trump will ask the Senate to vote on an immigration bill that matches the framework his administration has released—including a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images At retreat, Trump pushes GOP to compromise on immigration bill

President Donald Trump on Thursday urged Congressional Republicans to find compromise on a package of immigration and border security reforms, calling on the Senate to vote on legislation that matches the White House’s suggested framework, on which the president advocated "great flexibility."

“We’re going to have to compromise unless we elect more Republicans, in which case we can have it just the way everybody in this room wants it. We have to be willing to give a little in order for our country to gain a whole lot,” Trump said. “If we're united, if we work together for the good of the nation and we can fulfill our sacred duty to the country and to our incredible voters, we have really fulfilled a solemn promise.”


Trump’s remarks contained little in the way of fresh proposals, focusing instead on reinforcing policies his administration has pushed for weeks or months. He called for a restructuring of U.S. trade relationships around the world with an emphasis on reciprocity and improved infrastructure. Trump also urged for growth in vocational schools and reforms that would allow experimental medicines for terminal patients.

He also called for reforms to the prison system that would help convicts find jobs after their release, although he added, as he turned to face House Speaker Paul Ryan, that “the best thing we've done to fix that, Paul, is the fact that the economy is just booming. That fixes it better than any program we can do.”

But by far the biggest issue Trump touched on in his speech was immigration, specifically a deal to address the fate of so-called Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children (in an apparent aside, Trump objected to the use of the term “Dreamers,” urging Republicans not to “fall into that trap” and remarking that “we have Dreamers in this country, too”).

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Trump asked the Senate to vote on an immigration bill that matches the framework his administration has released, which includes a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers as well as funding for the president’s promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and reforms to the nation’s immigration system. Such a deal could be difficult to pass in the Senate, where Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said money for a border wall is off the table in forthcoming negotiations.

While the president asked the Senate to vote on his proposed framework for an immigration deal, Trump also suggested that Republicans ought to be open to cutting a deal with Democrats – or else dedicate themselves to winning more seats in this year’s midterm elections. It was the latter suggestion that earned a warmer response from the assembled Republicans.

“I know that the Senate is planning to bring an immigration bill on the floor, to the floor, in the coming weeks, and I'm asking that the framework we submitted – with great flexibility, great flexibility, working with both parties, that something very positive will come out of it for our country, for everybody,” Trump said. His suggestion that Republicans operate with “great flexibility” differed from the excerpt of the speech released by the White House and appeared an impromptu improvisation.

Trump also suggested that Democrats' interest in Dreamers was disingenuous and that members of the opposing party might not be interested in finding a bipartisan solution, only in using immigration as an issue with which to attack the GOP next November. The president predicted that such a strategy would backfire and ultimately benefit Republicans.

The president dedicated a significant portion of his remarks to touting his administration’s claimed successes through one year in office. He celebrated the stock market’s growth and his administration’s campaign to cut government regulations, as well as the pace at which he has secured confirmations for conservative federal judges around the nation.

Trump in particular touted the passage of a package of tax cuts and reforms that he said had acted as a vehicle for a slew of GOP priorities, including a repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate and opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration.

“When we got the great tax cut bill, and we call it the tax cut and jobs bill, we got that, it was like putting it all in a box and wrapping it with a beautiful ribbon. We started getting credit not only for that but for all of the other things that we did during the year,” Trump said. “It's amazing the way that happened. I was surprised, actually. But, we got a lot of credit from a lot of people.”

