Following dinner with President Trump at the White House Wednesday night, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) released a joint statement saying they had reached an agreement with Trump to protect unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the United States by their parents when they were children.
"We had a very productive meeting at the White House with the president," the leaders said. "The discussion focused on DACA. We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that's acceptable to both sides. We also urged the president to make permanent the cost-sharing reduction payments, and those discussions will continue." White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders quickly tweeted that "while DACA and border security were both discussed, excluding the wall was certainly not agreed to." (Schumer's spokesman responded to Sanders that Trump "made clear he would continue pushing the wall, just not as part of this agreement.")
There are almost 800,000 young immigrants who benefit from DACA, a program enacted by former President Barack Obama that provides temporary work permits and assurances they won't be deported. Earlier this month, Trump said the program was going to be terminated, and he was giving Congress six months to figure something out. This is the second time in two weeks that Trump has worked directly with Schumer and Pelosi, bypassing his fellow Republicans.