After all, while ending illegal immigration and restoring rule of law is important to conservatives, it's not going to be easy to throw every DACA recipient out. Some after all are valedictorians, and Americans have no stomach for throwing them back to the s-holes. So there is Trump's deal and it might benefit all sides, including Republicans.

For one thing, it's bigger than anything the Democrats have laid out - citizenship for 1.8 million DACA and wannabe DACA recipients after a dozen years, which is about the same time as the immigration line for a green card, meaning it doesn't stiff those waiting legally. Democrats must feel like they have been playing smallball compared to this, and of course Republicans will benefit at least slightly. Trump has taken the lead and stolen their thunder.

Here's what Mitchell wrote on Twitter:

Remember, Trump's broader stated goal is "merit-based" immigration.  His new "DACA deal" is just that.  He brings the illegals out of the shadows by registering them.  They screw up once, they're gone.  He just added a "merit-based" filter to illegal immigration. Smart.

and

A path to citizenship under Trump's plan would take 12 long years. During that time, "Dreamers" must be PERFECT or they get deported.  In the end, the only ones left to achieve citizenship are here on "merit" and will likely vote Republican because they will be prosperous.

It makes sense because studies show that most Dreamers are underachievers, many of whom are just high school graduates, heavy welfare users, have petty crime backgrounds, and do not speak English. It's almost a given that most won't make it to the twelve-year finish line without getting into a bar fight, getting caught graffiti-spraying, or be picked up for drunk driving. The only ones who make it will be those with a work ethic and family values. Those actually are the ones who could become Republicans in the long run.

Trump knows this. Democrats don't. They believe their own propaganda about all DREAMers being valedictorians. All it would take is the course of time for the sheep to sort themselves out from the goats and then we'd see. At the end, we would get the creme de la creme, and based on their values, not on the things Democrats value, such as class or skin color, just values. Trump's DACA twelve-year test is for them to have a chance to show their values, kind of like Hercules being asked to perform the twelve labors. In the end, we'd get the people who would actually like being Americans and succeed at it. We wouldn't have to keep the goats. The goats would go back to Mexico, or wherever.

It's not foolproof, of course. All it takes is one leftwing judge to vacate a conviction on account of the consequences for a DACA recipient's citizenship prospects, nullifying the entire incentive to be good. What's more, as Levin points out, another president can ease the time requirements to nothing, and if he is a Democrat, he will. Also, it's a stretch to say that if DACA recipients get prosperous they'll vote conservative. Has Mitchell been to any big cities lately?

But it's a gamble a lot of us can live with. It also has political advantages. Trump can be the champion of DACA, not Nancy Pelosi, and then where would Democrats be? He'd have stolen their thunder. Mitchell thinks it's political, too.

Democrats do not want amnesty for DACA recipients. They want #IdentityPolitics as a campaign issue for 11/18. Trump gets that and is denying them what they really want. Think strategic.

and

If Democrats accept Trump's DACA deal they alienate their far left base by caving on the wall.  If they reject the deal, they alienate everyone else by being #AmericaLast.  By sweetening a deal Democrat leadership CANNOT accept, he completely marginalizes them for 11/18. Get it?

Realistically, after all we have seen of Trump in the last year, would he really botch it? He' rolled Democrats every time they got near him. This tweet from a thoughtful Washington operative, seems to state it best:

Dear liberals: He bested you in the electoral college, passed a tax cut without you, turned the shutdown against you, and repealed your beloved health care mandate. He's unraveling your gains on judges, welfare, and regulation. Do you think you'll outsmart him on immigration? — Dean Clancy (@DeanClancy) January 26, 2018