Story highlights Trump proposes giving 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship

It would be in exchange for $25 billion for his long-promised wall

Washington (CNN) Democrats are responding to President Donald Trump's proposal to give 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship in exchange for $25 billion for his long-promised wall -- and they're not happy.

"Dreamers should not be held hostage to President Trump's crusade to tear families apart and waste billions of American tax dollars on an ineffective wall," Sen. Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who has fought for protection for participants in the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, said in a statement.

"The White House claims to be compromising because the President now agrees with the overwhelming majority of Americans that Dreamers should have a pathway to citizenship. But his plan would put the administration's entire hardline immigration agenda -- including massive cuts to legal immigration -- on the backs of these young people," Durbin said.

Democratic immigration advocate Eddie Vale, who's been closely involved in the recent immigration talks, called the White House proposal "a legislative burning cross."

"What the White House is filling you in on now is in no way an attempt to get to a real deal," Vale told CNN, adding that rather it is a way to "get every item on (White House senior adviser) Stephen Miller's white supremacist wish list."

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