Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said that Congress could look at giving DACA recipients a path to permanent legal status, while insisting the Trump administration will never accept amnesty.
Speaking to reporters at a counter-drone conference in Maryland, Mullin said a lot of Democrats have contacted him about working together on immigration legislation in the new Congress, where Democrats will control both chambers. Ive let the president know that those calls are coming in, and the president has said, Lets start working with them and then lets meet at some point, he said.
He then raised the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields some immigrants brought to the country illegally as children from deportation and gives them work permits: If we want to have an immigration reform to where we can look at DACA and figure out a way that these individuals can become maybe legal permanent citizens or something like this, thatll be up to Congress.
Mullin said he and President Donald Trump have not discussed changing enforcement policy. But has there been a conversation about changing the policy? No, we havent had that conversation, he said, adding, Were never going to allow amnesty to happen. He offered no timetable, eligibility rules, or details on whether any deal would lead to green cards or citizenship, and the remarks mark a shift in tone from a March DHS post on X that said DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country and warned that recipients could be arrested and deported.
The comments followed Trumps Sunday 60 Minutes interview, in which the president said his deportation policy might be too tough and floated a deal for some longtime immigrant workers; a White House official told the Daily Caller, The President never said the word amnesty. There has never been a President stronger on immigration enforcement than President Trump.
About 436,350 people held active DACA protections as of June 30, down from 533,280 at the end of 2024, according to federal figures compiled by the National Immigration Forum, and a narrower Senate amendment by Sen. Dick Durbin to speed DACA renewals already failed a procedural vote 48-51 in June. Mullins opening also comes days after Trump named Stephen Miller, the architect of the administrations hardline immigration agenda, as White House chief of staff.
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