Gov. Jay Inslee laid out plans to completely overturn President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. | Rachel La Corte/AP Photo democratic candidates policies How Gov. Jay Inslee would address immigration

In his first policy proposal not directly related to climate change, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee laid out plans to enact wholesale reversals of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.

What would the plan do?

Inslee’s plan would call for an immediate end to a number of signature Trump policies, including the construction of a wall on the southern border and the ban on travel from some majority-Muslim countries, and would reinstate the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protected undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children from deportation.


Inslee also has pledged to allow more refugee admissions to the United States and change the Trump administration’s asylum policy, which makes migrants seeking asylum from Central American countries stay in Mexico. The plan also includes provisions to increase foreign aid to Latin America, which Inslee says would help reduce illegal immigration.

The plan would also raise the number of annual refugee admissions into the United States, eventually going past the target of 110,000 the Obama administration set during its final year. Most sweepingly, Inslee wants to overhaul the current legal immigration system with a focus on providing a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers and other undocumented immigrants.

How would it work?

A number of Inslee’s top immigration priorities would be accomplished by executive orders rescinding Trump policies and reinstating older ones. But any major fix to the immigration system would require congressional action, which has eluded the federal government for decades, despite widespread, bipartisan discontent with the current legal system.

How much would it cost?

The plan does not give a baseline total, but Inslee’s argument rests partially on the idea that Trump’s immigration policies are costing the United States. Inslee’s immigration policy paper argues, for example, that the Trump administration threat to close the border between the U.S. and Mexico “endangers $1.6 billion in daily cross-border trade.”

What have other Democrats proposed?

Julián Castro has laid out a detailed plan that emphasizes a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants. Beto O’Rourke has also proposed an immigration plan that says he would use executive authority as president to reverse key Trump administration policy positions on immigration.

Who opposes it?

Anti-immigration hard-liners and supporters of Trump’s immigration stances will likely oppose Inslee’s plan.