President Donald Trump said Tuesday that "I have a great heart" for recipeints of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and that his giving Congress six months to pass a permanent solution to their plight was "going to work out very well" and "be the right solution."
"We have a great heart for the folks we're talking about," Trump told reporters at the start of a meeting on tax reform with top Republican leaders at the White House. "A great love for them.
"People think in terms of children, but they're really young adults.
"I have a love for these people — and hopefully, now, Congress will be able to help them and do it properly."
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that President Trump was rescinding the DACA program, which allowed illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to remain and apply for work permits.
The DACA program, created by former President Barack Obama in 2010 by executive order, affects as many as 800,000 illegals. None would be affected before March 5.
Most of the immigrants protected by DACA — known as "Dreamers" — came from Mexico and other Latin American countries.
Sessions slammed the program as "executive amnesty" instituted by the previous administration.
"To have a lawful system of immigration that serves the national interest, we cannot admit everyone who would like to come here," Sessions told reporters at the Justice Department. "It's just that simple.
"That would be an open-border policy and the American people have rightly rejected that," he said.
Talking with reporters at the White House before the tax-reform meeting, Trump said that "in speaking to members of Congress, they want to be able to do something and do it right.
"And, really, we have no choice. We have to be able to do something.
"I think it's going to work out very well," the president added, flanked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
"And long-term, it's going to be the right solution."
Regarding his tax plan, President Trump reiterated the objectives he outlined in a speech in Missouri last week and said that the program was "more than just tax reform.
"This is tax-cutting, to put it in a very simple term," he said. "We're going to cut taxes.
"We're going to reduce taxes for people, for individuals, for middle-income families.
"We're going to reduce taxes for companies, and those companies are going to produce jobs.
"It's time to lower our taxes, bring back our wealth and make America the jobs magnet that it can become — and pretty quickly."