Immigs are confused by Don: sec’y

There was no political gain or bump in the polls to be found anywhere in the death of Jonathan Martinez, who died at the age of 8 last week in his classroom at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino. There was no flurry of tweets from President Trump about Jonathan Martinez the way there was the last time there was a gun tragedy in San Bernardino, when Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik shot up the Inland Regional Center in 2015 and 14 people ended up dead and the whole thing was treated as if it were some kind of aftershock of 9/11.

Farook and Malik were Muslims. He was born here. His wife came from Pakistan. But the country reacted as if ISIS had sent them right through airport security. HOMELAND Security Secretary John Kelly said Sunday that the opaque mishmash of legal moves and executive orders undertaken by President Trump to curb illegal immigration has sowed “enough confusion” that illegal immigrants are trying to enter the U.S. less frequently.

“The attention being paid to the border certainly has injected into those people, and the vast majority of them are good people from Central America, but it’s injected enough confusion in their minds,” Kelly said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“They’re just waiting to see what actually does happen.”

Kelly (photo inset) was also asked about the so-called “deportation force” Trump had promised during the campaign to deport millions. Kelly rejected the term but not the concept.

“There is a plan to hire 10,000 new (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents, 5,000 new Border Patrol agents,” Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press,” said to Kelly. “What do you call this if not a deportation force?”

“A law enforcement force,” Kelly replied. “Men and women who will do their jobs in the future as they’ve done them in the past. And that is execute and uphold the nation’s laws.”

Last week, the Homeland Security Department released a plan to quickly grow the number of people tasked with enforcing immigration laws.

Kelly on Sunday conceded that under the new rules, “even a single DUI, depending on other aspects, would get you into the system” that oversees deportation proceedings.

“It is fair to say that the definition of criminal has not changed, but where on the spectrum of criminality we operate has changed,” he added.

When asked whether Trump's harsh comments and measures were responsible for a reported drop in attempted border crossings, Kelly said, “Absolutely.”

The Homeland Security Department said last week that 16,600 individuals were apprehended or stopped from entering the U.S. from Mexico last month, a 64% decrease from March 2016.