Washington, January 29 (RHC)-- In the United States, immigrant rights groups and some Democratic lawmakers are slamming President Donald Trump’s new proposed immigration plan, which would provide a 10-to-12-year path to citizenship for about 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants, in exchange for no protections for their parents, $25 billion for Trump’s border wall, an end to the family reunification program and an end to the diversity lottery system, which particularly benefits African nations. 

Opponents of Trump’s plan say it would dramatically restrict legal immigration paths and hurt families.  The plan was crafted by Trump’s xenophobic policy adviser Stephen Miller and White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly, who previously served as the head of the Homeland Security Department and, before that, as the head of Pentagon’s Southern Command. 

In response to the plan, the American Civil Liberties Union tweeted: “Today the White House released a hateful proposal that would slash legal immigration to levels not seen since the racial quotas of the 1920s, eliminate legal channels for African immigrants, and spend $25 BIL for a wasteful border wall plus increase in Border Patrol and ICE agents.” 

Many immigration activists and Democrats have vowed to oppose the plan, with Illinois Democratic Congressmember Luis Gutiérrez tweeting: “It would be far cheaper to erect a 50-foot concrete statue of a middle finger and point it towards Latin America.  Both a wall and the statue would be equally offensive and equally ineffective and both would express Trump’s deeply held suspicion of Latinos.” 

In more immigration news, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund has sued the Trump administration over its decision to end temporary status protections for nearly 60,000 Haitian immigrants who have been living in the United States for years.  The group is arguing the move was “irrational and discriminatory” and that it was motivated by President Trump’s “public hostility toward immigrants of color.”