Trump sticks to tough immigration position
Confusion persists amid protests over separated families
LAS VEGAS — President Donald Trump pressed his tough immigration stance at a Nevada political convention Saturday, telling hundreds “we have to be very strong” to keep people, including violent gang members, from entering the country illegally.
Trump was in Las Vegas to boost the candidacy of Dean Heller, the only Republican U.S. senator seeking re-election in a state that Democrat Hillary Clinton won in 2016. Trump and Heller have papered over their once prickly relationship to present a united front in their shared goal of helping Republicans maintain, if not expand, their 51-49 majority in the Senate.
In remarks to several hundred people attending the Nevada GOP Convention, Trump portrayed himself as tough against illegal immigration, saying at one point, “I think I got elected largely because we are strong on the border.”
But he excluded any mention of the public outcry, including from members of his own family, over the practice of separating families crossing into the country illegally. After the outcry, Trump on Wednesday ordered that migrant families be reunited. But confusion has ensued, with parents left searching for their children.
Trump criticized Heller’s Democratic opponent, Rep. Jacky Rosen, and tagged her with one of the derisive nicknames he’s fond of giving his opponents: “Wacky Jacky.”
“Wacky Jacky is campaigning with Pocahontas. Do you believe this?” Trump said, resurrecting his nickname for Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a vocal Trump critic. “When you see that, that’s not the senator you want,” he added.
Rosen responded on Twitter: “Is that the best you’ve got @realDonaldTrump?”
Outside the hotel, hundreds of people protesting Trump’s policy of separating families at the border were stretched along a sidewalk outside the Las Vegas casino where the president met with supporters before addressing the Nevada GOP convention.
His motorcade drove past a smaller group holding signs that said “Resist” and “History Has Its Eyes On You.”
Meanwhile, in Texas, 25 Democratic members of Congress toured a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility in McAllen, where they described seeing migrant children sleeping behind bars, on concrete floors and under emergency heat-resistant blankets.
The lawmakers said they aren’t convinced the Trump administration had any real plan to reunite immigrant families caught along the border, while demonstrators gathered to protest the separation of parents from their children by U.S. border authorities.
Even when parents and children aren’t separated, they are often housed in adjacent cells that keep them apart, the lawmakers said. They added they hadn’t seen a clear federal system for reuniting those who were split up, since everyone — even infants — is assigned “A” or alien numbers, only to be given different identification numbers by other federal agencies.
“There are still thousands of children who are out there right now untethered to their parents and no coherent system to fix that,” Rep. Joe Courtney, DConn., said after the tour.
The lawmakers also said they believed border agents were handling the situation as well as could be expected at the facility for immigrants recently apprehended.
But Rep. Barbara Lee of California called what she witnessed “shocking and outrageous” and said lawmakers saw no evidence children were receiving counseling or mental health care to cope with the stress of being in federal custody.
“It is, for all intents and purposes, a prison,” said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif.
After the lawmakers left, dozens of immigrant rights demonstrators temporarily blocked a bus carrying immigrants from leaving the facility, and shouted “Shame! Shame!” at border agents.
Protests were also held in other parts of Texas, California and Florida. Demonstrators marched in San Diego carrying signs reading “Free the Kids” and “Keep Families Together.” Hundreds of people rallied near a Homestead, Fla., facility where immigrant children are being held.
In recent weeks, more than 2,300 children were taken from their families under a “zero tolerance” policy in which people entering the U.S. illegally face prosecution.