Nicholls goes to Washington for key meetings
President Trump also invites Yuma mayor to White House party
President Trump has invited Yuma Mayor Doug Nicholls to a business party in the White House this coming week. Nicholls and his wife, Danette, head to the Capitol today, and they’ll spend the week in Washington, D.C.
Nicholls will also meet with U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials to present a letter from mayors along the Colorado River that expresses concern with a request to transfer river water to Queen Creek.
Local officials and farmers worry that if the water transfer is approved, it would set a precedent that would threaten Yuma’s water supply. Greenstone also owns thousands of acres in Yuma County.
Nicholls will also meet with Chad Wolf, the new acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Wolf has stated that one of his top priorities is addressing “the historic crisis at the southwest border.” In April, Nicholls declared an emergency due to the hun
dreds of asylum-seeking migrants who were being released into the city every day.
Nicholls has met the two previous DHS heads, both of whom have toured the border in Yuma, with Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen visiting in April and previous acting secretary Kevin McAleenan in August. Nielsen was ousted in April shortly after her visit to Yuma and McAleenan resigned in October.
The mayor credits several factors for keeping Yuma in the President’s consciousness: the area’s military bases and the work that is done on them, the city’s proximity to the border, which is a “very important” issue to the President, and Trump’s visit to Yuma in 2017.
This is not the first time that Trump invited Nicholls to an exclusive event in the White House. In January 2018, the president asked Nicholls to join another 99 mayors for “A Conversation with the President.”
There was assigned seating during the “conversation” with Trump, and Nicholls was invited to sit in the first two rows, which he believes is an indication of “how our community is well positioned and well thought of,” he said at the time.
This past April, Nicholls once more met with President Trump and then DHS acting secretary McAleenan in the Oval Office to discuss the security and humanitarian crisis at the southern border.
Nicholls also discussed with President Trump the importance of Congress passing the United States Mexico-Canada trade agreement, which occurred recently. The USMCA replaces the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement.
The mayor said he’s looking forward to the trip. “I have high expectations,” he noted.