Rahm Emanuel Meets Donald Trump, Urges Immigration Amnesty for ‘Dreamers’

Image by Getty Images

By Nathan Guttman December 7, 2016

Chicago mayor and former Democratic White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel made his way to Trump Tower in New York Wednesday for a meeting with president-elect Donald Trump.

The meeting, according to a tweet was centered on the treatment of undocumented immigrants in a Trump presidency and Emanuel, a firebrand Jewish Democrat, presented Trump with a letter urging the president-elect to continue the DACA program which allows some children of undocumented immigrants who arrived at a young age to remain in the United States.

Emanuel, according to reports focused solely on immigration in his conversation with Trump, which he described as “candid.”

Shortly after the election of Trump, who had vowed to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, Emanuel declared that Chicago will remain a “sanctuary city” for immigrants.

The Chicago mayor is the second member of the Emanuel family to be summoned to the president-elect. His brother Ari, a Hollywood talent agent who represented Trump in the past, met with him on November 20 at Trump’s New Jersey golf resort. Trump called Ari Emanuel “a great friend.”

Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected]

Nathan Guttman, staff writer, was the Forward’s Washington bureau chief. He joined the staff in 2006 after serving for five years as Washington correspondent for the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. In Israel, he was the features editor for Ha’aretz and chief editor of Channel 1 TV evening news. He was born in Canada and grew up in Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.