Pelosi rejects financing Trump’s wall in exchange for Dreamers solution

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi , who will become House Speaker in January, on Thursday ruled out approving financing for President Donald Trump ‘s long-demanded wall along the Mexican border in exchange for an agreement allowing undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers to remain in this country.

“They’re two different subjects,” said Pelosi in answer to a reporter’s question about whether her party would be ready to negotiate with the White House on the matter, as Trump has said he wants.

The situation of the beneficiaries under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals , or DACA, known as Dreamers has been in danger after Trump announced the termination of that program last September and gave Congress six months to pass the so-called DREAM Act , which would provide a path to citizenship for some 700,000 DACA beneficiaries.

However, because Congress has failed, so far, to agree on a solution to the problem, this could result in the deportation of thousands of undocumented young people next year.

Trump’s order to end DACA, however, was put on hold in January by a California judge, who ordered the government to accept DACA renewal requests while five lawsuits against the administration are decided.

The president has demanded that Congress provide a legislative solution for the Dreamers, although he drew red lines that Democrats find extraordinarily difficult to accept, including requiring billions of dollars in funding for the border wall and ending family reunification as a feature of US immigration policy.

Trump in recent weeks has once again insisted that if the federal budget does not include a specific allocation for construction of the border wall he will not sign it, a move that would result in another partial government shutdown like the one that occurred last year.

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: America’s patriotic young #Dreamers are not bargaining chips. #ProtectDreamers,” said Pelosi on her Twitter account after appearing before the media in Congress.

At the press conference, Pelosi said that the wall, one of Trump’s oft-repeated promises during his 2016 presidential campaign, is “immoral, ineffective (and) expensive” and, in addition, she noted that the president “promised that Mexico would pay for it,” although adding that even if Mexico refuses to do that the wall is “still immoral” and runs counter to American values.