Trump: Bypass court process for immigrants
Lawmakers blast words, ‘inhumane’ actions, but hope bill passes
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump pressed his case for cracking down on undocumented immigrants Sunday, tweeting that “zero tolerance” is fair and gives preference to those who “legally wait their turn.”
“We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country,” Trump said on Twitter. “When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., visiting a processing center for undocumented immigrants on the Texas border, dismissed the implication that the migrants should be denied due process.
A mother with a young child who faced threats from gangs and asks for asylum in the U.S. should not be rejected without a hearing, she said.
“That’s not what our country stands for,” she said. “We do have a system of laws.”
Under zero tolerance, undocumented adult immigrants who did not cross at legal entry points are arrested and separated from their children while they are prosecuted for the misdemeanor.
Trump’s tweets Sunday came hours after federal officials released a plan to reunify migrant children with their parents in a mass detention center in Texas.
The Department of Homeland Security said the reunifications may not happen until after a parent’s deportation proceedings are complete.
Trump once again railed against U.S. immigration laws, calling them a “mockery” to law and order.
“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!” he said. “Immigration must be based on merit – we need people who will help to Make America Great Again!”
House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, meanwhile, insisted Sunday that Trump remains “100 percent” behind a compromise House immigration bill, despite Trump saying last week that Congress should give up its legislative efforts until after the election in November.
“I did talk to the White House (on Saturday); they did say the president is still 100 percent behind us,” Rep. McCaul, R-Texas, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
McCaul, along with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is pushing a bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for about 1.8 million young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, provide about $23 billion for a border wall and place limits on legal immigration.
The bill would allow children and their parents to remain together at detention centers if they’re caught crossing the border illegally.
If it doesn’t pass, the House will probably take up a narrow measure that would stop federal officials from separating children from their parents.
Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to stop further separations, but confusion remains about the fate of more than 2,000 children taken from their families.
In a fact sheet from the Department of Health and Human Services about the administration’s plan, Trump administration officials said the U.S. government knows the location of all children in its custody and is working to reunite them.
As of June 20, Health and Human Services was caring for 2,053 children separated from their adult family members, according to the fact sheet.