US president says plans have ‘never changed or evolved’, despite remarks by chief of staff

Donald Trump has contradicted his chief of staff over proposals for a wall along the southern US border with Mexico, tweeting that his opinion on a wall “has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it”.

On Wednesday evening, the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, said the US president’s views on immigration and a border wall had “very definitely changed” after Trump had been briefed on the subjects.

However, in the early hours of Thursday morning, Trump tweeted: “The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it.”

Kelly’s comments came amid a shaky effort to craft an accord protecting hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation – a push the White House and Republicans say they would support if it is coupled with tough border security measures and other restrictions.

“If there is no Wall, there is no Deal!” Trump tweeted on Thursday.

Trump claims Mexico will pay for wall – day after seeking $18bn from Congress Read more

Kelly first spoke of the president’s evolving views at a closed-door meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, participants said, and he made similar remarks later on Fox News.

Kelly said on Fox News he had told the caucus that “they [presidential candidates] all say things during the course of campaigns that may or may not be fully informed”.

Trump had “very definitely changed his attitude” toward protecting the young immigrants, “and even the wall, once we briefed him”, Kelly added. “So he has evolved in the way he’s looked at things. Campaign to governing are two different things and this president has been very, very flexible in terms of what is within the realms of the possible.”

Politicians are struggling to reach a bipartisan deal protecting Dreamers – about 800,000 people who arrived in the US illegally as children and could be deported without legal protections. Part of the negotiators’ problem has been uncertainty over what Trump would accept.

Quick guide What is Daca and who are the Dreamers? Show Hide Who are the Dreamers? Dreamers are young immigrants who would qualify for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (Daca) program, enacted under Barack Obama in 2012. Most people in the program entered the US as children and have lived in the US for years “undocumented”. Daca gave them temporary protection from deportation and work permits. Daca was only available to people younger than 31 on 15 June 2012, who arrived in the US before turning 16 and lived there continuously since June 2007. Most Dreamers are from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and the largest numbers live in California, Texas, Florida and New York. Donald Trump cancelled the program in September but has also said he wants Congress to develop a program to “help” the population. What will happen to the Dreamers? Under the Trump administration, new applications under Daca will no longer be accepted. For those currently in the program, their legal status and other Daca-related permits (such as to work and attend college) will begin expiring in March 2018 – unless Congress passes legislation allowing a new channel for temporary or permanent legal immigration status – and Dreamers will all lose their status by March 2020.

Technically, as their statuses lapse they could be deported and sent back to countries many have no familiarity with. It is still unclear whether this would happen. Fear had been rising in the run-up to last week’s announcement. Those with work permits expiring between 5 September 2017 and 5 March 2018 will be allowed to apply for renewal by 5 October. What does the recent ruling by Judge William Alsup mean? In his ruling, Alsup ordered the Trump administration to restart the program, allowing Daca recipients who already qualify for the program to submit applications for renewal. However, he said the federal government did not have to process new applications from people who had not previously received protection under the program. When the Trump administration ended the Daca program, it allowed Daca recipients whose legal status expired on or before 5 March to renew their legal status. Roughly 22,000 recipients failed to successfully renew their legal status for various reasons. Legal experts and immigration advocates are advising Daca recipients not to file for renewal until the administration provides more information about how it intends to comply with the ruling. “These next days and weeks are going to create a lot of confusion on the legal front,” said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, which has filed a separate lawsuit against the Trump administration’s termination of Daca. Joanna Walters

Some politicians who met Kelly on Wednesday recalled his remarks differently. “He specifically said that there’s some areas of the border that didn’t need the wall, and that the president didn’t know that when he was making his campaign promises,” Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, told the Associated Press.

The Illinois Democrat Luis Gutiérrez said Kelly had told them “there were statements made about the wall that were not informed statements. In other words, ‘I’ve informed the president of what it takes to build a wall, so here’s how we’re going to do it.’ That’s what I understood, and all of that was helpful”.

On Thursday, Trump tweeted that some of the wall would be “see through and it was never intended to be built in areas where there is natural protection such as mountains, wastelands or tough rivers or water …”

Many Democrats have said that without an immigration deal in sight, they will vote against a Republican bill preventing a government shutdown this weekend. Congressional passage must come by Friday to prevent an election-year shuttering of federal agencies that could be damaging to both parties.

Part of congressional negotiators’ problem has been uncertainty over what Trump would accept.

“He’s not yet indicated what measure he’s willing to sign,” the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, told reporters on Wednesday. “As soon as we figure out what he is for, then I will be convinced that we would not just be spinning our wheels going to this issue on the floor.”

Trump ended the legal shields on Dreamers last year and gave Congress until March to renew them.

Last week, he rejected a compromise by three Democratic and three Republican senators to restore those protections, a deal that included money to begin building the wall and other security steps. Trump’s rejection angered the bargainers, and partisan feelings worsened after participants in a White House meeting last week said Trump had referred to African nations as “shitholes”.

Another group of high-level lawmakers has also started talks aimed at brokering an immigration deal, adding an additional level of uncertainty.

The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said there was “very, very strong” sentiment among Democrats in the chamber to oppose GOP-drafted legislation to keep the government’s doors open.

His comments underscored the problems GOP leaders face in winning congressional passage of that legislation. The bill would keep agencies open until mid-February and finance a popular children’s health insurance program for a year.

Democrats’ votes are needed to advance the stopgap measure through the Senate. It is even unclear whether GOP leaders have nailed down enough votes to prevail in the House, where conservatives and strong boosters of the Pentagon have been unhappy.

In a statement on Thursday, the Mexican government said it “will not under any circumstances pay for a wall or physical barrier along the border under,” adding that the matter was an issue of “sovereignty and national dignity”.