WASHINGTON — (CNN) President Donald Trump wants to pass an immigration reform bill that could grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants living in the US.

“The time is right for an immigration bill as long as there is compromise on both sides,” Trump told reporters Tuesday at the White House.

The President is eager to pass a compromise immigration bill in his first term that would stop short of granting a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants, but would allow illegal immigrants who aren’t serious or violent criminals to live, work and pay taxes in the US without fear of deportation, a senior administration official said. And Trump is now considering adding the topic to his speech Tuesday night before his address to a joint session of Congress.

A path to citizenship for those in the country illegally would not be part of Trump’s vision for this deal, with the possible exception of “Dreamers” — those brought into the US illegally as children.

News of the President’s support for a comprehensive reform of the US’s immigration system fell against a backdrop of increasingly aggressive actions by immigration authorities across the US, who under Trump’s administration have found new freedom to deport illegal immigrants who have not been convicted of a serious crime — the bar they were told to abide by under President Barack Obama’s tenure.

But Trump’s new apparent desire to grant legal status to many illegal immigrants living in the US also marks a startling reversal from the positions he championed during his campaign for president.

Trump focused on the need to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, and for much of his campaign, called for deporting all estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US.

The closest he came to calling for a path to legalization for illegal immigrants was in his calls to allow the “good ones” who had been deported to reenter the US through an expedited, legal process.

Democrats on the Hill may be open to working with the administration on a compromise, sources said — but healthy skepticism remained about Trump’s true intentions on Tuesday and lawmakers signaled they’d want to see more from the President, and less aggressive immigration enforcement actions, before they believed him.

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