Nations on edge
Kelly: No use of U.S. military to enforce immigration
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly pledged Thursday that America won’t enlist its military to enforce immigration laws and that there will be “no mass deportations.”
Only hours earlier, President Donald Trump suggested the opposite. “It’s a military operation,” Trump said Thursday at the White House.
Kelly’s declarations came as senior Trump administration officials sought to temper Latin American concerns about a new U.S. immigration crackdown.
Speaking in Mexico City after he and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with their Mexican counterparts, Kelly said all deportations will honour human rights and the U.S. legal system. That includes multiple appeals offered to those facing deportation. Kelly said the U.S. approach will involve “close co-ordination” with Mexico’s government.
“There will be no use of military forces in immigration,” Kelly said. “There will be no – repeat, no – mass deportations.”
Trump said the U.S. is “getting really bad dudes out of this country at a rate nobody has ever seen before.”
He said it’s a military operation “because what has been allowed to come into our country, when you see gang violence that you’ve read about like never before and all of the things, much of that is people who are here illegally. And they’re rough and they’re tough, but they’re not tough like our people. So we’re getting them out.”
Mexico and other Latin American nations have been on edge over Trump’s plan to target millions of people in the U.S. illegally for potential deportation – including many Mexicans.