On immigration, the president is going for it all

By BYRON YORK
ime, drugs, low-wage job competition. And it remains the backbone of his current immigration proposal.

At the same time, issues of legal immigration — specifically chain migration and the visa lottery — played far smaller roles in the campaign.

For example, in Trump’s much-discussed August 31, 2016 policy speech in Phoenix, he laid out 10 immigration priorities for his administration. Number one was the wall. Number two was an end to the catch-and-release policy. Number three was zero tolerance for criminal aliens. After that came sanctuary cities, an entry-exit visa tracking system and more.

Reforming legal immigration was number 10, at the bottom of Trump’s list. He didn’t talk much about it, at least not in any detail. Mostly, Trump made just a brief nod to legal immigration, saying he wanted to include a “big, fat, beautiful door” in the border wall through which legal immigrants would be welcomed.

But now, limiting chain migration and ending the visa lottery are key parts of the Trump immigration package. And the president has leverage; Democrats desperately want DACA legalization. They’re prepared to give something away to get it.

In addition, some polls suggest Trump’s positions — making immigration more merit-based and doing away with the visa lottery — enjoy majority support.

By making a maximalist offer, Trump has things to give away in negotiation. In the end, there is probably just one thing he absolutely has to have, and that is the thing he promised voters over and over and over again: the wall.

The White House has come up with a demand for $25 billion for the wall — enough to cover its construction and various support systems. And not some sort of Washington make-believe $25 billion. Trump wants Congress to put the money in a trust fund that the president could use to pay for building the wall. (That doesn’t mean opponents won’t try to stop the project by other means, like a barrage of lawsuits, but for the White House, it’s first things first.)

It’s important to say that everything could still fall apart, but at the moment, Trump’s goal is within reach. Democrats acknowledge that they’re going to have to give something big to get Trump’s equally big offer on DACA legalization.

In the end, a Trump victory on the wall would be absolutely remarkable. Just think back to all those Democrats and activists and other Trump opponents who virtually pledged to throw their bodies in front of any effort to build a wall. The ones who pledged that Congress would never approve a wall. That it would never, ever, ever be built.

Now, the president might be on the verge of proving them wrong. How? It’s simple. You just ask for about three times more than you want, so when you compromise, you get what you want.

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.