Trump wants those who ‘invade’ sent back
Immigration system is laughable, he says
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Sunday that people who “invade” the U.S. must immediately be sent back to their countries and not be given a court hearing.
Mr. Trump tweeted that the U.S. immigration system is “laughed at all over the world” and is “very unfair” to individuals using legal avenues to gain entry.
Last week, Mr. Trump reversed a “zero-tolerance” policy of separating families entering the U.S. illegally at the border with Mexico.
Even though Mr. Trump reversed course in the face of an international outcry and said families will remain together, his move has sown chaos and uncertainty — and the administration has provided little guidance.
It is not clear how many asylum-seekers are still entering the country, how many are being detained as families, and how many are being released. Nor it is known how long it will take for all parents and guardians to be reunited with their children.
With the controversy over the separations only partly
abated, no senior administration official went on the Sunday news shows to defend the White House’s actions, as would be normal practice when a major policy issue is involved.
Also, White House has provided no news briefing since a contentious session on June 18, when press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders erroneously said the policy was mandated by law and that its enforcement was “biblical.”
Venting his frustration over the crisis, Mr. Trump said on Twitter as he was being driven to his private golf club in northern Virginia: “We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. 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. Most children come without parents.”
The American Civil Liberties Union said that is both illegal and unconstitutional. “What President Trump has suggested here is both illegal and unconstitutional,” said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “Any official who has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws should disavow it unequivocally.”
And Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University, said the federal government is not the “agile instrument” for policy that Mr. Trump seems to think it is.
“It’s very difficult to make a U-turn, then make another U-turn,” Mr. Light said, adding that’s exactly what Mr. Trump did last week in signing the executive order after he and other administration had insisted for days that their hands were tied and that only Congress had the power to step in and do something.
The president also said a second tweet, “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 — we need people who will help to Make America Great Again!”
The president’s redoubled denunciation of all unauthorized arrivals — even those legally seeking asylum — came as Democrats responded skeptically Sunday to the Trump administration’s assertion that it has a process in place to reunite more than 2,000 “separated minors” with their parents, while Republican lawmakers sought to defend the president’s immigration policies and again promised that all the children taken from their parents in recent weeks were accounted for.
The House is expected to vote on immigration legislation later this week, even as Republican apprehension over Mr. Trump’s next tweet and fear of riling conservative voters are seen as undermining that effort.
Party leaders are trying to finally secure the votes they need for their wide-ranging bill with tweaks that they hope will generate support from the GOP’s dueling conservative and moderate wings.
But more importantly, wavering Republicans want Mr. Trump to provide political cover for immigration legislation.
Last Tuesday, he privately told House Republicans that he backed their legislation “1,000 percent” and would protect them during their campaigns, lawmakers said. By Friday, he was tweeting that “Republicans should stop wasting their time on Immigration” and wait until after the November elections.