Senators: Trump to roll out immigration plan in speech ‘as early as this week’

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President Trump will deliver a speech as early as this week outlining an immigration reform plan that would bolster border security and create a more merit-based system, according to GOP senators who attended a meeting with Vice President Mike Pence Tuesday.

“The president is going to be giving a speech on it maybe as early as later this week,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner as he left a closed-door meeting with fellow Republican senators and Pence. “So I’ll be interested to see how he rolls this out.”

Pence, along with Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner, and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, briefed GOP senators on the plan, which would include both border security elements and the changes to bolster merit-based immigration.

“They had broad outlines of a plan,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said. “There were sort of six buckets, it had to do with employment, security, and humanitarian.”

Trump has held smaller meetings with GOP lawmakers at the White House to discuss the plan.

Tuesday’s meeting was aimed at uniting the GOP around a central plan.

“I don’t think it’s designed to get Democratic support as much as it is to unify the Republican Party around border security,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. “This is what we want on border security, this is what we want on merit-based immigration.”

Graham said the merit-based proposal is “similar” to one he authored as a member of the “Gang of Eight” back in 2013.

That plan would have created a point system for immigrants seeking visas that would favor those with higher levels of education and steady employment histories in addition to other factors.

The Gang of Eight bill, which would have eliminated the diversity visa lottery program, passed the Senate but was blocked in the House.

Graham plans to introduce legislation on Wednesday that would change U.S. asylum laws in order to make it less attractive for migrants from Central America, who are now flooding the border, to try to cross into the United States illegally.

Graham said once Republicans are unified around a plan, they would negotiate with Democrats on what to do about the 11 million illegal immigrants now living in the United States.

[Read more: Border surge pushes Pelosi and McConnell to seek long-elusive immigration deal]

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