Protecting DREAMers is wildly popular, but Trump rejected one of the few bipartisan plans

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) believed they secured a meeting with President Trump on Thursday to go over their bipartisan immigration plan with the four other senators negotiating the deal, two Democrats and two Republicans. But when they arrived, immigration hardliners like Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) were in the Oval Office, because White House adviser Stephen Miller "was concerned there could be a deal proposed that was too liberal and made sure conservative lawmakers were present," The Washington Post reports.

"Trump had seemed amenable to a deal earlier in the day during phone calls with lawmakers," the Post says, citing aides, but he "shifted his position in the meeting and did not seem interested in the bipartisan compromise." Most infamously, Trump rejected the idea of protecting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and several African countries, calling them "shithole countries" and specifically nixing Haiti. "Why do we need more Haitians?" Trump reportedly said. "Take them out." The meeting got "salty" on all sides, a White House official told the Post. "It did not go well."

One of the main pillars of the bipartisan plan, and its impetus, was a replacement for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The plan offers a 12-year path to citizenship for DREAMers, young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally when they were children. Protecting DREAMers is really popular — 86 percent of U.S. voters, including 76 percent of Republicans, want the DREAMers to stay in the U.S., according to a new Quinnipiac poll.

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Other parts of the bipartisan plan are more contentions, with liberals opposed to the $1.6 billion for planning and building Trump's border wall and conservatives opposed to any path to citizenship. It "has been viewed as the legislation that has the best chance of success on Capitol Hill," Politico reports, though another bipartisan group of four top lawmakers is focusing more narrowly on the DREAMers issue.