Trump seeks to bypass due process at border
WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump unleashed an aggressive attack Sunday on unauthorized immigrants and the judicial system that handles them, saying that those who cross into the United States illegally should be sent back immediately without due process or an appearance before a judge.
“We cannot allow all of these people to invade our country,” Trump tweeted while on the way to his golf course in Virginia. “When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came.”
It was another twist in a head-spinning series of developments on immigration since the administration announced a zero tolerance policy two months ago, leading to the separation of children from parents who cross the border illegally and an outcry from Democrats and many Republicans.
Trump signed an executive order to end the separations last week, but the sudden shifts have led to confusion along the border about how children and parents will be reunited and to turmoil in Congress as the House prepares to vote on a sweeping immigration bill this week.
Still, the president, who has always dug his heels in when criticized, has not backed back down from his hardline talk, even amid a national outcry over a detainment policy that has resulted in the separation of more than 2,300 children from their families.
He has instead gone on the offensive, complaining to aides about why he could not just create an overarching executive order to solve the problem, according to two people familiar with the deliberations. Aides have had to explain to the president why a comprehensive immigration overhaul is beyond the reach of his executive powers.
And privately, the president has groused that he should not have signed the order undoing separations.
“Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order,” Trump tweeted Sunday, adding, “Our immigration policy, laughed at all over the world, is very unfair to all of those people who have gone through the system legally and are waiting on line for years! Immigration must be based on merit.”
But Trump’s call to ignore due process faced both constitutional questions and dissension from Republicans in Congress, some of whom have insisted that the number of judges be increased so migrant families can have their cases heard more quickly. Federal immigration courts faced a backlog of more than 700,000 cases in May, and cases can take months or years to be heard.