WASHINGTON — The White House offered a deal Thursday that would allow 1.8 million young immigrants to become citizens, in exchange for drastic curbs on future immigration and $25 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The White House cast it as a "compromise" that both sides in Congress could support, as lawmakers have begun negotiations over the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. But it doesn't address the status of most of the 11 million people in the country illegally, and in that regard it differs substantially from "comprehensive" deals debated for years.

Immigration advocates called it a nonstarter — an effort to sweeten a set of draconian policies by ending the threat of deportation that has hung over young immigrants since President Donald Trump scrapped an Obama-era executive order last fall.

The White House plan would dramatically curb "chain migration," which lets newly minted Americans and some green card holders petition to bring family members to the United States. Under the new rules, the benefit would apply only to spouses and minor children, though pending applications would be processed.

Current rules let U.S. citizens sponsor parents and siblings, and the proposed change is deeply objectionable to Democrats.

"They don't get to exploit a crisis they created so they can take a wrecking ball to the Statue of Liberty. They don't get to threaten young Americans with deportation in order to keep out and kick out millions," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice. "They want to slash legal immigration by nearly 50 percent. ... They want to build up their deportation force to drive millions out of the country. They want to build a big, stupid, wasteful and insulting border wall to extend the middle finger to Latin America."

On Wednesday, Trump told reporters that he would be open to a deal allowing a 10- or 12-year path to citizenship for "Dreamers" — the young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. The name is derived from the DREAM Act, legislation that's been under consideration for years in Congress.

Trump has long vowed that Mexico would pay for the wall. Mexican officials have laughed that off and rejected the idea outright. The White House proposal includes no mechanism to deliver on the president's promise.

Vicente Fox, the former Mexican president who has been an outspoken critic of Trump and the wall, called the project "nonsense" Thursday night at an event hosted by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce at the National Press Club in Washington. But he lauded Trump for embracing citizenship for young immigrants.

"Fortunate 1.8 million. I know they want to stay here," he said. "That would be fantastic. ... Finally Señor Trump came back to reason and I’m glad for that — if it happens.”

It would be far cheaper to erect a 50-foot concrete statue of a middle finger and point it towards Latin America. Both a wall and the statue would be equally offensive and equally ineffective and both would express Trump’s deeply held suspicion of Latinos. https://t.co/R8g4iRHzYX — Luis V. Gutierrez (@RepGutierrez) January 25, 2018

White House officials weren't able to say how many miles of border wall the $25 billion would provide. The funds would also be used for personnel and technology, and aides said the details are open to negotiation with Congress. About 700 miles of fencing is already in place along the 2,000-mile border.

As for the young immigrants, President Barack Obama issued an executive order providing work permits and lifting the threat of deportation for those who came forward. Some 690,000 were in the DACA program when Trump undid the order last fall, setting a March 5 deadline.

As many as 1.3 million more people may have been eligible, and White House officials said the path to citizenship would be available to them, too. That's a substantial sweetener for Democrats and other immigrant advocates, though conservatives — including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — have warned against supporting "amnesty" for Dreamers.

Hard-liners also skeptical

Policies viewed as amnesty are anathema to immigration hard-liners. Breitbart News labeled the president "Amnesty Don" in a headline Thursday. Heritage Action for America CEO Michael Needham also invoked the term. "Amnesty comes in many forms," he said, and this "risks opening Pandora's box and could lead to a Gang of Eight-style negotiation."

Ahead of the White House rollout of its plan, Cruz said it would be a "serious mistake for Congress to pass amnesty legislation with a path to citizenship for those here illegally."

"Doing so would be inconsistent with the promises we made to the men and women who elected us," Cruz told The Dallas Morning News. "We should be standing for the working men and women of this country."

In an interview with Bloomberg, an exercised Cruz pointed out that Obama did not include a path to citizenship in the original DACA program. Without naming Trump, Cruz expressed astonishment that the GOP would consider such a move.

"For some reason that to me is utterly inexplicable, we see Republicans falling all over themselves to gallop to the left of Obama in a way that is contrary to the promises made to the voters who elected us," Cruz said.

Still, he stopped short of saying he'd oppose legislation now being crafted in the Senate.

The $25 billion that Trump seeks from Congress would be in the form of a trust fund, and the border wall wouldn't be its only purpose, though White House aides offered only vague details.

Cornyn reaction

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the chamber, declined Thursday to say whether he would support a 10- to 12-year pathway to citizenship.

"I am not going to comment on a stand-alone provision," said Cornyn, who has been tapped to help lead talks over an immigration overhaul in the Senate. "It's got to be part of a larger package."

Cornyn said he expected that disagreements over the diversity visa lottery and chain migration would be the biggest hurdles.

"People seem to think border and DACA match up," he said, referring to growing consensus to pair security improvements with permanent protections for young immigrants. "Chain migration and diversity lottery visa seem to be tougher. ... But we're going to have to deal with the fact that the president is insisting on those."

The head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M., called it "shameful" for Trump to use young immigrants as "bargaining chips for sweeping anti-immigrant policies."

But South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican who was part of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" that led a failed push in 2013 for comprehensive reform — a deal that included citizenship for those in the country illegally, along with heightened security and enforcement — expressed support for Trump's approach and said Trump might yet achieve something that has eluded other presidents.

Graham has been pushing his own plan that the White House has panned. It would protect Dreamers but set aside just $2.7 billion for a border wall. White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said earlier this week that it would "woefully" underfund the wall.

"To pretend he is anything other than someone who wants open borders and amnesty is just disingenuous," Gidley told CNN.

Problems with Graham's plan

A senior White House official, briefing reporters Thursday about the president's proposal, reiterated the complaint that Graham's bill wouldn't begin to secure the border.

"These parents committed a crime. They came in here and have been here illegally. They cannot be rewarded with a quicker path to legalization than someone who is standing in line," he said. "That is, at this point, one of the critical issues that's got to be overcome."

Washington correspondent Nicole Cobler contributed to this report.

Read the White House plan here: