President Trump told his Homeland Security chief to open immigration talks with Democrats, but drew a hard line against amnesty.
Quick Take
- Trump authorized DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to start talking with Democrats about immigration reform.
- Mullin says no decision has been made to change enforcement policy.
- Mullin insists amnesty will never happen, even while floating a path for DACA recipients.
- Conservative allies, including a former Border Patrol chief, call the outreach a betrayal.
Mullin Says Trump Gave Him The Green Light To Talk
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says President Trump personally told him to start working with Democrats on immigration legislation. Mullin said calls from Democratic lawmakers had been coming in, and Trump’s response was simple: start talking, then meet in person. “I’ve let the president know that those calls are coming in, and the president has said, ‘Let’s start working with them and then let’s meet at some point,'” Mullin said.
Mullin made one thing clear. That conversation never touched changing the administration’s enforcement rules. “No, we haven’t had that conversation,” he said when asked directly about policy shifts. No transcript, memo, or public Trump statement has confirmed the full scope of what the president actually approved. Right now, Mullin’s word is the only record of it.
What No Amnesty Actually Means Here
Mullin has repeated one line louder than any other. Amnesty, he says, will never happen under Trump’s watch. Yet he also floated a possible path for people covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, suggesting Congress could eventually make them “legal permanent citizens or something like this.” That leaves a gap between blanket amnesty and a narrow, negotiated fix for one small group.
The distinction matters because nobody has pinned down where reform ends and amnesty begins. Mullin says people who entered the country illegally or overstayed visas without ever filing for legal status should expect detention and deportation, not relief. DACA recipients arrived as children and already hold a limited legal status created by executive action back in 2012, which makes their case different from the broader undocumented population.
Conservative Allies Push Back Hard
The backlash arrived fast. Former Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino said voters sent a clear message demanding mass deportations, not reform talk from the man running Homeland Security. Commentator Robby Starbuck called Mullin’s position “a total betrayal” of the people who elected Trump. The Heritage Foundation and the House Freedom Caucus answered with two blunt words of their own: no amnesty.
Missouri Representative Bob Onder joined the chorus, writing that there would be no amnesty for illegal aliens, period. Political consultant Ryan Gidursky warned that any bipartisan deal scaling back deportations would hurt the party badly. The reaction shows how little room Trump’s team has to maneuver. Even talk of negotiation, with no concession written down anywhere, triggered an intense response from his own base.
History Shows This Trade Is Nothing New
This standoff echoes one of the biggest immigration fights in modern history. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 paired tougher enforcement, including employer penalties, with legal status for nearly three
