President Trump said yesterday that he intends to give illegal aliens brought to the U.S. as children citizenship in ten to twelve years.

President Trump said for the first time Wednesday that he is open to a path to citizenship for some younger undocumented immigrants [sic; should be "illegal aliens" –ed.] known as "[DREAM]ers" in an immigration deal being negotiated by Congress, a potential breakthrough in the stalled talks.

"We're going to morph into it," Trump said of citizenship. "It's going to happen – over a period of 10 to 12 years.  If somebody's done a great job and worked hard, it keeps the incentive to do a great job. ... I think it's a nice thing to have the incentive, after a period of years, of being able to become a citizen."

How do we know that any of these people has done a "great job" and "worked hard"?  Will there be a way to determine who has "worked hard" and who has not?  No.  All will be given amnesty – including those on welfare.  Including those who are barely literate.  Including those who have committed "minor" crimes.

When the "DREAMer" program was in effect under Obama, for much of the time, the rejection rate was one percent.  Obviously, many of them were not vetted.  Don't expect that to start now.

The worst aspect of this is that Trump has conceded to Democrats' chief demand even before the tough negotiations have begun.  Trump used the DACA termination as leverage to get a border wall and end chain migration, but with this statement, he has given the Democrats exactly what they wanted and gotten nothing in return.

Why, after making such a statement, should Democrats concede anything on a border wall or chain migration?  There is no reason to.

In fact, now that Trump has set down his marker, this is only the beginning of negotiations.  Trump offers citizenship for DREAMers in 10-12 years; Democrats will push for a deal to make it much sooner and to include their parents.  Because Trump has already set the bar so low, conceding DREAMer citizenship, whatever final deal emerges will be even worse than this one.

I am not even remotely surprised.  Trump, for all his theatrics, has always been a terrible negotiator.  I knew what we were getting when Trump was elected: someone much better than Hillary Clinton, who would do the right things in some areas but disappoint us in others.

But I never had any illusions about his negotiating skills, as when he told Congress that he would agree to anything they came up with and that he wanted to sign "a bill of love."  Despite his tough campaign talk against Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham (the latter of whom is now Trump's golfing buddy), it was always clear that Trump is soft on illegal aliens.

Photo from BuzzFeed.

Exit questions:

1. If you still believe in the president's negotiating skills, why it is good to accede to your adversaries' main demand before real negotiations begin?

2. If DREAMers are legalized now, before the border is secured, how will that prevent a flood of new illegals from entering the country?

Ed Straker is the senior writer at Newsmachete.com.