To hear the press tell it, President Trump is making unreasonable demands by asking for a deal to allow the illegal aliens known as DREAMers to stay in the U.S. In fact, he's making tradeoff demands so outrageous that no Democrat could possibly say yes to them.  His real aim in asking for tradeoffs must be to scupper the deal.

Get a load of these headlines:

White House Makes Hard-Line Demands for Any 'Dreamers' Deal –New York Times

Trump lists immigration demands that could derail 'Dreamers' deal –Politico

In 'Dreamer' deal, White House demands policies that Democrats explicitly oppose –Associated Press

Now, wait a minute.  Hold on.  Trump wants tradeoffs for a deal to allow the DREAMers to stay, and somehow asking for tradeoffs, any tradeoffs, is anathema?  Are Democrats, the party of smoke-room politics, incapable of making a tradeoff?  Or is it they who just don't want one?

Bear in mind that if Democrats feel that strongly about chain migration rights, keeping the border unguarded, avoiding E-Verify, and all the other things they say are deal-breakers from the Trump camp's proposed tradeoffs, they are free to keep those things and let the DREAMers get deported to the countries of their foreign citizenship as the six-month window expires.  It's up to them, because a DREAMer deal is hardly something Trump owes them.  Their intransigence suggests they may in fact be weighing whether the DREAMers are worth it.  Because if Democrats really care as much as they say they do about DREAMers, then it should be a no-brainer for them to cut a deal and to give Trump any tradeoff he wants.

What's unreasonable here is that they think Trump should just give them what they want without any compromises from the.  To the press, the Democrats' shibboleths are sacred, while Trump's priorities are expendable. The activists Democrats take their marching orders from are even more adamant and explicit. Here's one just in via email from something called DREAM Action Coalition:

** STATEMENT **

Stephen Miller's Nationalist and White supremacist Agenda Will Not Be A Basis For Any Immigration Deal 

 

Washington, D.C. - On Sunday, Donald Trump unveiled his list of immigration policy demands in exchange for a deal to protect Dreamers who were covered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration (DACA). Cesar Vargas, Esq. co-director of the Dream Action Coalition issued the following statement: 

 

" We are always open to a serious discussion with the White House on modernizing our outdated immigration system. However, we will not tolerate a deal that essentially helps one group of immigrants only to persecute another group, specially refugee children from Central America escaping violence. The White House's immigration principles aka Stephen miller's nationalist and white supremacist agenda will not be a basis for any deal. We have the American people on our side, we have the numbers on our side, we have both Republicans and Democrats on our side and we will continue push for a clean Dream Act with no strings attached."

They forget that Trump ran for office on a promise to restore rule of law to the immigration system, and he won the presidency on that platform in a nationwide vote.  His obligation to the voters is every bit as immutable as the Democrats' is to their much smaller constituencies.  The only way Trump can legitimately sign off on a DREAMer deal is if he can promise the skeptical and previously lied-to voters that the immigration system is restored and the mess will never happen again.  That is what the tradeoffs are intended to achieve.  The only way the minority-party Democrats should be able get what they want is to give in on other things.

It's called compromise.

And it should be a compromise if all sides are serious.  The average voter, recall, doesn't have a dog in this fight.  He or she isn't going to benefit in any way from a DREAMer amnesty.  On the political spectrum, only Democrats will benefit, because DREAMers, once they achieve citizenship, will pretty much all vote Democrat.  So there is nothing in amnestying DREAMers for voters, the GOP, or Trump, unless there are things these voters asked for, too.

Yet the press is shaping the coverage so as to claim that Trump wants to scupper the deal with unreasonable demands.  There is no examination of what may be really going on, which is that keeping the status quo may really be the Democrats' plan.

After all, Democrats benefit from illegal immigration.  They've gained congressional seats and electoral college votes as illegals have filled districts in parts of Southern California, even though illegals are not permitted to vote.  (In some districts along the 710 corridor, the voting rate is about 10% due to high illegal alien counts.)  Democrats also benefit from the expansion of government – as illegals fill schools, hospitals, jails, food stamp offices, and Departments of Motor Vehicles offices, and even put wear on highways and infrastructure.  And high numbers of illegals in any of these establishments open the door to more federal funding, often a transfer of funds from other parts of the country.  More government = more bureaucrats = more federal funding = more Democrats.  Democrats also benefit from chain migration – in championing illegal immigrants, they scarf up votes from their legal relatives already in the states.

Now, weighing that, against just giving the DREAMers residency status over all the other people waiting in line to emigrate legally, might be a bridge too far for them.  But Democrats should state that openly and make it known that illegal immigration is too good for them as it is to cut a deal on the DREAMers.  Since they won't, they pursue a no-compromises policy and expect President Trump to just cave in to everything they demand while giving nothing.  Presumably, Trump can avoid bad press and sob stories in return as his reward.

It's not a deal any reasonable president should fall for.  Trump probably won't.  And the media should look at that issue as it is with honesty.