GOP leaders eye new bill on family separations at border

Top House Republicans are discussing legislation aimed at curbing the separation of migrant families at the border, GOP aides said Monday. e election-year response to public uproar over the Trump administration policy comes as a broader immigration package heads toward likely House defeat this week.

As showdown votes approached, President Donald Trump called anew for an end to the judicial process that currently awaits unauthorized immigrants entering the U.S. He also criticized the idea of hiring additional immigration judges to handle the huge backlogs of such cases — even though congressional Republicans have proposed just that.

“Hiring many thousands of judges, and going through a long and complicated legal process, is not the way to go — will always be disfunctional. People must simply be stopped at the Border and told they cannot come into the U.S. illegally, Trump said in a tweet Monday with typos and misspelling of dysfunctional.

“If this is done, illegal immigration will be stopped in it’s tracks — and at very little, by comparison, cost. is is the only real answer — and we must continue to BUILD THE WALL!” he tweeted.

Amid public and bipartisan pressure, Trump last week reversed his policy of separating children from detained migrant parents. It has already resulted in up to 2,300 children being taken from parents, though the government has said 522 have already been reunited with their families.

The broad Republican immigration bill contains language curbing those separations.