“If you are a DACA that's compliant with your registration ... you're not priority of enforcement for ICE should the program end,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo DHS chief: Deporting Dreamers won't be a priority for ICE if talks fail

Deporting undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children would not be the government’s priority should Congress and the Trump administration fail to reach a deal on protections for so-called Dreamers, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told CBS in an interview that aired Tuesday morning.

Nielsen said she is still hoping for a deal to codify into law legal status for Dreamers, but she told “CBS This Morning” that should the sputtering talks for such a deal fail, Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not prioritize deporting Dreamers who are in compliance with DACA, the Obama-era government program that President Donald Trump ended last year.


“It's not going to be a priority of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to prioritize their removal. I’ve said that before. That's not the policy of DHS,” Nielsen said. “If you are a DACA that's compliant with your registration, meaning you haven't committed a crime, you, in fact, are registered, you're not priority of enforcement for ICE should the program end.”

Asked whether Dreamers’ status as a low enforcement priority would continue in perpetuity, Nielsen said it would, but she added that “of course, it means you can’t commit a crime and we will enforce the law.”

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The legal status of Dreamers has been a contentious issue since Trump decided last September to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which had shielded them from deportation. Trump has promised to treat Dreamers with “great heart” and left open a six-month window for Congress to act before DACA was fully rescinded. But he has also insisted that any deal for Dreamers be paired with his own priorities, including reform to the nation’s immigration system and funding for his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Immigration talks appeared to break down over the weekend in the wake of reports that Trump had referred to some Caribbean and African nations as “shithole countries.” That remark reportedly came during a meeting in which Trump rejected a preliminary bipartisan deal that had been struck by a group of six senators. Trump blamed Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) for the breakdown in talks.

“Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting. Deals can’t get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military,” the president wrote on Twitter on Monday.