Watching this, I keep thinking of that Hillary clip from 2014 that made the rounds a few weeks ago in which she said “Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay.” Conservatives pointed to that as proof that even the reigning Democratic nominee opposes a DREAM amnesty, but huffy lefties complained that Clinton was being taken out of context. She was referring to children who had *recently* crossed the border, they said, not to children who were brought here years ago and had built a life in America. Obviously Democrats don’t support opening the borders to let any child in whose parents want them to come.

But they do support that, in principle. If that’s not the takeaway from Pelosi’s shpiel here, what is? DREAM kids have contributed much to America, she notes, therefore it’s wonderful that their parents broke the law in bringing them here. (Pause here to reflect on the Democratic leader in the House openly praising illegal immigration as “great.”) Unless she has evidence that child illegals crossing the border today would contribute less than current DACA enrollees, there’s no obvious reason by her logic why the practice shouldn’t be allowed to continue. Which, in fact, is what a lot of Democrats do want, including the lovely people who shut down her press conference a few days ago and whom she won’t criticize here except in the gentlest, most politic terms.

In fact, the point of this grand pander is to assure DREAMers that Democrats won’t stop with amnestizing them but will use a deal with Trump as a “first step” towards amnestizing the heroic moms and dads who dragged them across the border in the first place. It’s chain migration 101, in the same spirit as the executive amnesty Hillary proposed last year in which she promised to legalize the parents of DREAMers if elected. If you’re a border hawk who’s skeptical of the deal being used as a building block to a much bigger amnesty eventually, if not during Trump’s term then during the next Democratic president’s, this is Pelosi telling you you’re right to be. It’s a hugely damaging clip in terms of handing nationalists a weapon with which to oppose a compromise. But she has her own base to please. This’ll please them.