Trump again presses for tough border laws
PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump, blaming Democrats and the Mexican government for an increasingly “dangerous” flow of illegal aliens, unleashed a series of tweets on Sunday in which he threatened to rule out a DACA deal and walk away from the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Minutes after wishing the nation a happy Easter on Sunday, Trump denounced “liberal” laws that he said were preventing Border Patrol agents from doing their jobs. He said Republicans should use the “Nuclear Option” to sidestep Democratic opposition in the Senate and enact “tough laws NOW.”
“NO MORE DACA DEAL!” he added.
It was unclear whether the president’s tweets represented any change in his immigration policy. The president, who spent much of his holiday weekend golfing with supporters and watching television, was apparently reacting to a Fox and Friends segment on immigration that had aired minutes before.
White House officials have long said Trump’s tweets are official presidential statements, and he has been known to use Twitter to preview formal policy pronouncements.
Trump has suggested at
times that he is open to extending citizenship to millions of people, but he has also denounced those who have entered the country illegally as criminals and raged about lax enforcement that he said had allowed immigrants to pour into the country.
Trump posted his comments after Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, a labor union representing border agents, talked about reports that a caravan of hundreds of Central Americans was headed toward the U.S. in a bid to secure asylum.
Judd, on Fox News’ Fox and Friends, said the people seeking asylum would “create havoc and chaos” while in the U.S. awaiting hearings on their refugee status.
Under current immigration policies, asylum seekers that prove a “credible fear” of returning home may be released while they await adjudication if they don’t present a security or flight risk. Those detained after crossing the border are also sometimes released because of bed shortages and a court ruling that limits the detention of women and children to 21 days.
Trump went on to say those crossing the border “are all trying to take advantage of DACA.”
“They want in on the act!” he wrote.
As he walked into church in Palm Beach on Sunday morning, Trump did not respond to a question from reporters about whether his tweets meant that he would no longer support any deal for the young immigrants protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. But he said that “Mexico has got to help us at the border, and a lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of DACA.”
It was not immediately clear what Trump was referring to
when he said people are coming to take advantage of the program. To qualify, immigrants must have lived in America since 2007, have arrived in the country before age 16 and have been younger than 31 on June 15, 2012. No one arriving in the country after that date is eligible.
The Department of Homeland Security is not issuing new permits, though existing ones can be renewed. President Barack Obama’s administration allowed sign-ups during a set period of time, and the program is closed to new entrants.
Proposed DACA deals crafted by lawmakers and rejected by Trump also were not open to new participants.
Trump in the past has promised to show “great heart” in wrestling with the issue.
Trump said he would like to reach a deal with Congress to protect young immigrants from deportation in exchange for funding to build his long-promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. The president, however, rejected immigration proposals from congressional Democrats in recent months.
Trump announced last year that he was ending the DACA program, but courts have blocked his decision.
Trump sent his tweets on the fourth and final day of his vacation in Palm Beach, where he has been staying at his private Mar-a-Lago resort with a small coterie of aides. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly did not travel with him, but senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, a proponent of hard-line immigration policies, has been with Trump.
The president also has been spotted spending time — both over dinner Friday at Mar-a-Lago and on Saturday at the nearby Trump International Golf Club — with Fox host Sean Hannity. An outspoken immigration hard-liner, Hannity is a Trump booster and informal presidential adviser, in addition to hosting a radio show and prime-time
Fox News show.
Outside the church on Sunday, the president said the Democrats “blew it” after having “had a great chance.”
“But we’ll have to take a look,” he added.
Several Democrats challenged the idea that they were at fault for a breakdown in negotiations.
“‘NO MORE DACA DEAL’?!!” Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota wrote on Twitter. “You were never doing a DACA deal. Your actions gave you away: cancelling DACA with no plan, making racist comments about Black/Brown immigrants” and rejecting bipartisan deals.”
Rep. Dwight Evans, D-Pa., said on Twitter that DACA recipients were “students, military service members, teachers, scientists, doctors, and lawyers — they are integral members of our community.”
Evans said the president’s comments were “simply unacceptable.”
Trump’s remarks also drew a rebuke from a high-profile member of his own party. Gov. John Kasich of Ohio wrote on Twitter: “A true leader preserves & offers hope, doesn’t take hope from innocent children who call America home.”
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., urged Congress to take up the fight for DACA recipients.
“There are plenty of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who stand ready to work with the administration on legislation to protect DACA kids who call America home,” he tweeted. “Let’s do it.”
Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said on Twitter that Trump had once again revealed an anti-immigrant stance behind his immigration policy. “The mask of deceptions and lies with which Trump has tried to gaslight the country for months just fell away: ‘no more DACA deal.’” Beyer tweeted. “His true position was always anti-immigrant.”
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., a
leading advocate for a DACA deal in the House, tweeted that Trump had “demonstrated his complete ignorance” on immigration policy.
“Everyone who qualifies for DACA must show they lived in US almost 11 years ago,” he wrote. “Apparently every day is April Fool’s Day at White House.”
Trump directed an equal measure of anger at Mexico, saying the country was “doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S.” He said Mexican leaders “must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA.” “NEED WALL!” he added. Mexican government officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Trade representatives from the U.S., Mexico and Canada have met several times in an attempt to renegotiate NAFTA, and Trump has repeatedly threatened to pull out of the agreement if terms are not renegotiated to his liking. While such action could be blocked by legal challenges and Congress, leaving NAFTA could badly hurt Mexico’s economy, which in 2016 sent 73.3 percent of its exports to the U.S.
The president, in his tweets, criticized what he called “Catch & Release,” a practice in which illegal aliens detained in the U.S. are sometimes released as they wait for hearings before immigration judges. In some cases, they are released because the government has nowhere to house them.