WASHINGTON — The furor over President Donald Trump’s language about immigrants from “shithole countries” has partially obscured the substance of what he was demanding and the profound shift among Republicans away from opposing illegal immigration to pushing new limits on legal migrants, particularly of color.

Trump made the remark as he rejected a bipartisan proposal from Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to resolve the status of some 700,000 young adult immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children and now face deportation. In exchange for protecting them, Trump wanted more restrictions on legal migrants from Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, among other changes.

Those demands come as Trump has already put the country on track to remove 1 million immigrants over the next two years. Among them are the 700,000 young immigrants — who had been protected under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — more than 200,000 Salvadorans, nearly 60,000 Haitians and others from Central America who have lived in the U.S. legally, in some cases for decades, under temporary protected status plans that the administration is ending.

The mounting total is a policy reversal for Republicans, who until recently insisted that welcoming new arrivals was vital not just to the fabric of American life but in boosting the domestic economy.

Now, many Republicans in Congress have shifted to a more restrictionist position, following Trump’s lead.

Trump “has taken our issues off the back burner and thrust them into the spotlight,” said Roy Beck, executive director at Numbers USA, which argues for reducing immigration to levels before passage of the 1965 immigration overhaul ushered in a new era of diverse migrants.

Trump’s insistence on immigration restrictions may have increased the odds of a confrontation this week when Congress must vote on a measure to fund agencies or risk a partial government shutdown.

Many Democrats — and some Republicans — have said they won’t vote for the money bill unless it includes a solution for young people covered under DACA, which was created by the Obama administration. Starting March 5, unless Congress acts, about 1,000 DACA recipients each day will lose their legal protections and face potential deportation.

Meanwhile, the federal government, citing a recent court order, said Saturday night that it has resumed the acceptance of requests for grants of deferred action under the DACA program.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said those previously granted deferred action under DACA may request renewal by filing the proper forms. But USCIS said it was not accepting requests from individuals who have never been granted deferred action under DACA.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., warned Friday that Trump’s comment about not wanting Africans and instead wanting “to see more immigrants from countries like Norway must be called out for what it is: an effort to set this country back generations by promoting a homogenous, white society.”

“We all need to stop pretending that there are no consequences when the most powerful person in the world espouses racist views and gives a wink and a nod to the darkest elements in our society,” she said.

Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, is struck by the shift in the Republican position on immigration.

“For years, people would always say, ‘I’m against illegal immigration; I’m not against legal immigration.’ Now, we find out a lot of them are against legal immigration, and they were just waiting for the right time to say it,” he said.

Civil rights advocates see a pattern of race-based immigration preferences emerging from the administration, with echoes of the country’s restrictionist past, in which the law favored immigration from majority-white countries.

Trump’s approach is nothing short of a “racial purge,” said Judith Browne Dianis, executive director at the the Advancement Project. “So the question to Congress is: Whose side are you on?” she said Friday. “Congress must act or be complicit.”

Republicans, even those who have opposed immigration restrictions in the past, have been reluctant to challenge Trump, knowing that his stand gets strong support from many conservative voters.

When Trump made the vulgar comment during the Oval Office meeting with senators on immigration reform, only one Republican, Sen. Graham, appears to have spoken up to challenge him, although Graham would not comment publicly on what he said.

“I said my piece directly to him,” Graham said Friday in a statement.

The other five Republicans in the room, it appears, did not say anything at the time. Two of them, Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia, said they could not recall Trump’s comments.

A few Friday publicly disagreed with what Trump called his “tough” comments. “The words used by the president, as related to me directly following the meeting by those in attendance, were not ‘tough.’ They were abhorrent and repulsive,” tweeted Sen. Jeff Flake, who was part of the bipartisan talks but not at the meeting. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called the words “very unfortunate, unhelpful,” but declined to say more.

Other party leaders, including Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, have tried to push the GOP back to a more pro-immigrant stand, with an op-ed last week opposing Trump’s end of temporary protections for immigrants from countries hit by disasters.

Meanwhile, more details emerged Saturday about the bipartisan agreement Trump rejected. Its backers continue to work on the plan, hoping to pick up momentum. The Associated Press reported the deal includes a pathway to citizenship that would take up to 12 years. It also includes $1.6 billion for structures including a wall for border security.

The Washington Post contributed.

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com