APRIL FOOL!
Trump breaks Dreamer vow, attacks immigs as he parrots Fox News line
President Trump followed up a “HAPPY EASTER!” tweet on Sunday with fearmongering attacks on Democrats and Central American immigrants, and yet another flip-flop on his promise to negotiate a deal to protect youthful Dreamers.
HE’S UNFAIR and unbalanced.
Taking his talking points from a Fox News TV ticker, President Trump spent Easter Sunday spreading fear and threatening to renege on his promise to offer a pathway to citizenship for young immigrants.
“Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. ‘Caravans’ coming,” Trump tweeted.
Trump had sent out a “HAPPY EASTER!” greeting just an hour before his full-throated rant on problems with border control with Mexico.
“NO MORE DACA DEAL!” Trump posted to Twitter.
The President’s unholy holiday tirade came about an hour after Fox News flashed “CARAVAN OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS HEADED TO U.S” across the lower part of its broadcast.
Trump has been frustrated over his inability to strike a deal with Democrats over immigration that also includes funding for his border wall.
The President was holding open the promise to preserve
the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in order to get funding for the wall with Mexico. DACA allows children who entered the U.S. illegally — many as infants or young children and unaware of their immigration status — to stay in the U.S. while a citizenship path is formulated.
As with many issues, the President has played both sides of the immigration debate.
In September 2017, Trump ordered the program shut down by March 5, 2018.
He later softened his stance, urging lawmakers to pass a “bill of love” that would preserve components of DACA.
During March budget negotiations, Trump even threatened not to sign the budget if a deal couldn’t be worked out.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) at one point threatened to vote against government spending if DACA wasn’t addressed. He backed down when he got assurances on DACA — which were later broken.
In the first two months of the year, federal judges in Brooklyn and San Francisco barred the government from ending DACA, muting the urgency of the debate — until Trump revived it Sunday.
Trump dined Friday with disgraced ex-NYPD Commis-
sioner and Fox insider Bernard Kerik and golfed Saturday with Fox News talking head Sean Hannity.
He arose at Mar-a-Lago full of anti-immigrant venom on Sunday and tweeted anti-immigration non sequiturs.
He also railed against “ridiculous laws” that stopped law enforcement from keeping the border safe.
Trump additionally called on Senate Republicans to use the so-called “nuclear option,” which does away with the filibuster to clear the way for a simple 51-vote majority, “to pass tough laws NOW.”
The President refused to explain his tweets to the press as he walked into a Palm Beach, Fla., church with his Slovenian-born wife, Melania, and daughter Tiffany for the Easter church service.
“A lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of DACA,” he told reporters. “Mexico has got to help us at the border.”
The caravans are real, but they aren’t coming because of DACA, said Irineo Mujica Arzate, the director of immigration advocacy group Pueblo Sin Fronteras.
About 1,500 people have joined a caravan fleeing Honduras into Mexico in the hope of getting asylum status under Mexican and U.S. law.
“These are people fleeing violence, these are people fleeing the government in Honduras,” Arzate said.
This is the third such caravan that has traveled through Mexico, attempting to draw attention to the human rights abuses happening in Honduras.
The group hopes to get to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico to plead its case to government officials.
“They have the right to seek asylum,” Arzate said. “That’s international law.”
He dismissed the President’s characterization that the group — in a series of cars — would try to sneak into the U.S. country illegally.
“What does he think this is, a movie?” Arzate said. “They’re not going to try to ram the border.”
If anyone is to blame for the refugee problem in Honduras, said Arzate, it’s Trump because he supports that country’s president, Juan Orlando Hernandez.
The President repeatedly said Sunday that Mexico needed to ramp up its border security or he’ll pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
“They laugh at our dumb immigration laws. They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!” he tweeted.
Some reform groups vowed to keep pushing for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. at a young age after Trump’s remarks.
“This just reaffirms what we have known all along: Trump never wanted to protect immigrant youth — he only wanted to further his hateful anti-immigrant agenda,” advocacy group United We Dream tweeted Sunday. “Continue fighting locally! We are #HereToFight!”