GOP vows to end Trump’s separation policy

WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans moved on Tuesday to defuse an escalating political crisis over immigration, but failed to agree on how to end US President Donald Trump’s policy of separating immigrant children from parents who cross illegally into the United States.

The Senate had one plan, and the House another. Trump remained defiant, refusing to act on his own. In a fiery address to a group of smallbusiness executives, Trump falsely blamed Democrats for the separation crisis and demanded a broad overhaul of the United States’ immigration laws, a process that would take months.

At the same time, he belittled one of the central ideas behind the effort by Senate Republicans to immediately stop separating families on the Mexican border.

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said “all of the members of the Republican conference support a plan that keeps families together,” endorsing a quick passage of a narrow bill to provide legal authority to detain parents and children together while the courts consider their status. In the House, Republicans vowed to press ahead with votes this week on a pair of more sweeping immigration bills — one drafted by conservatives and the other a compromise measure between conservatives and moderates — that address the family separation issue to different degrees, while also strengthening border security and making other changes to the country’s immigration system.

In an hourlong meeting on Capitol Hill with House Republicans, Trump declined to explicitly back either one, saying he would sign both bills. Republican leaders are trying to rally support for the compromise bill.

“The president was very firm in explaining why it’s so important that he gets this bill to his desk so that we can solve some problems and secure our border,” said Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the Republican whip. He added, “We want to secure our border; we want to reunite kids. Our bill does just that.”

McConnell said he planned to reach out to Democrats to support his conference’s effort, hoping to stanch the political damage from the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that has led to heartbreaking stories of children separated from their mothers.

‘Trump can use authority to end family separations’

But Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, immediately shot down the Republican approach, saying Trump could — and should — use his executive authority, not legislation, to quickly end the family separations.

“Anyone who believes this Republican Congress is capable of addressing this issue is kidding themselves,” Schumer said in a statement.

“The president can end this crisis with the flick of his pen, and he needs to do so now.”

Trump has the power on his own to change that zerotolerance policy at the border, which would once again allow border agents and prosecutors the discretion to allow families to remain together after crossing illegally into the United States.

But it would also allow those families to be released while their court proceedings go forward, something Trump opposes.

In his afternoon speech, Trump dismissed as “crazy” a proposal by Senate Republicans to expedite processing of immigrant families by hiring hundreds of new immigration judges.

Rejecting a proposal by Sen. Ted Cruz, to increase personnel in immigration courts with the hiring of 375 new judges, Trump suggested that many of the immigration judges could be corrupt, and he said that some lawyers who appear in their courtrooms are “bad people.” –