Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
President weighs in again on immigration
Trump tweet contradicts message of days earlier
BERKELEY HEIGHTS, N.J. — President Donald Trump said Saturday that he never pushed House Republicans to vote for immigration bills that failed last week.
Trump tweeted from his New Jersey golf club that he didn’t press GOP lawmakers to support the plans because the legislation wouldn’t have cleared the Senate. He wrote that he had released many House Republicans “prior to the vote knowing we need more Republicans to win in Nov.”
The president’s statement contradicted his commentary three days ago in which he tweeted that House Republicans should approve the “STRONG BUT FAIR” bill though Democrats wouldn’t allow it to pass the Senate. A week earlier, he urged Republicans to stop wasting time on the bill until after the elections.
The GOP-led House rejected a wide-ranging immigration bill last week despite Trump’s endorsement, a vote that followed the defeat on a package that garnered more conservative support.
GOP leaders are considering an alternative that would focus narrowly on preventing the government from separating children from migrant families caught entering the country without authorization.
The issue has also been complicated by a federal judge who ordered that divided families be reunited within 30 days. Republicans have been working on legislation that would keep migrant families together by lifting a court-ordered, 20-day limit on how long families can be detained.
The president tweeted Saturday that when people enter the nation illegally, “we must IMMEDIATELY escort them back out without going through years of legal maneuvering. Our laws are the dumbest anywhere in the world.”