Trump urges Congress to secure Mexican border

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump yesterday declared as ‘‘dead’’ a programme that protects immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children and pressed Congress to ‘‘immediately’’ pass legislation to secure the US border with Mexico.

Trump, who has taken a hard line toward immigration, said in September he would terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme introduced by his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, but gave the Republicancontrolled Con gress until March 6 to replace it.

Congress failed to meet that deadline, but courts have ruled the programme can remain in place for now.

‘‘DACA is dead because the Democrats didn’t care or act, and now everyone wants to get on to the DACA bandwagon,’’ the Republican president said in a Twitter post.

In some of the Mexican towns playing host to a ‘‘caravan’’ of more than 1200 Central American migrants heading to the US border, the welcome mat has been rolled out despite Trump’s call for Mexican authorities to stop them.

Mexican officials have offered lodging in town squares and empty warehouses or arranged transport for the migrants, participants in a journey organised by the immigrant advocacy group Pueblo Sin Fronteras. The officials have conscripted buses, cars, ambulances and police trucks. But the help may not be entirely altruistic.

‘‘The authorities want us to leave their cities,’’ said Rodrigo Abeja, an organiser from Pueblo Sin Fronteras. ‘‘They’ve been helping us, in part to speed the massive group out of their jurisdictions.’’

At some point this spring, the caravan’s 3200km journey that began at Tapachula near the Guatemalan border on March 25 will end at the US border, where some of its members will apply for asylum, while others will attempt to sneak into the US.

‘‘There’s a lot of pressure from authorities to stop the caravan because of Donald Trump’s reaction,’’ he said.

Trump railed on Twitter against the caravan yesterday , accusing Mexico of ‘‘doing very little, if not NOTHING’’ to stop the flow of immigrants crossing the US border illegally. ‘‘They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA,’ he concluded.

Trump’s personal lawyer yesterday asked a federal judge to force porn star Stormy Daniels to use arbitration to settle a dispute over an agreement to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump.

Daniels (real name is Stephanie Clifford) last month sued Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, to be released from the nondisclosure agreement she signed in October 2016 in exchange for $130,000.

The White House has denied that Trump had sex with Daniels. Cohen has said he paid Daniels out of his own pocket.

In yesterday’s court filing in Los Angeles, Brent Blakely, Cohen’s attorney, argued the agreement included a provision that any disputes over it be settled through arbitration.

Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, said the matter should be in open court.

‘‘We will vigorously oppose the justfiled motion by Mr Trump and Mr Cohen to have this case decided in a secret arbitration, in a private conference room, purposely hidden from the American public,’’ Avenatti said. — Reuters