TRUMP: YAY FOR ME!
Prez ignores misery immig policy causes
Ignoring the confusion, heartbreak and ongoing outrage sown by his recent whiplash-inducing actions on immigration, President Trump said Saturday his administration is “doing a very good job” when it comes to the border.
Trump, between rallying and raising funds for GOP candidates in Las Vegas, delivered a rambling speech praising his administration's chaotic handling of a self-imposed immigration crisis that has separated thousands of children from their parents.
“Our people are actually doing a very good job handling a very difficult situation,” Trump told a cheering crowd at the Nevada Republican Party's convention. “But this is a problem that should have been solved years ago. So we are working very hard.”
More than 2,300 children have been ripped away from their families in recent weeks under a Trump administration “zero tolerance” policy in which people entering the U.S. illegally face detention and prosecution.
Parents and kids were being held separately. A firestorm of criticism followed reports about conditions at the children's detention centers and the release of a heartbreaking audio clip of distraught toddlers wailing for their parents.
Trump at turns blamed Democrats for his administration's actions and until signing an executive order Wednesday rescinding the separation policy had said his hands were tied. He has also asserted that Congress could provide the “only real solution” to his self-made immigration crisis.
His administration has since been scrambling to interpret and carryout his confusing executive order.
Immigration authorities on Friday issued a notice that they may seek up to 15,000 beds to incarcerate families. The Justice Department has also asked a federal court in California to allow children to be detained longer and in facilities that don't require state licensing while they await immigration court proceedings.
“The current situation is untenable,” August Flentje, special counsel to the assistant attorney general, wrote in filings seeking to change a longstanding court settlement that governs the detention of immigrant children. The more constrained the Homeland Security Department is in detaining families together during immigration proceedings, “the more likely it is that families will attempt illegal border crossing,” Flentje said.
The Pentagon is drawing up plans to house as many as 20,000 unaccompanied immigrant children on military bases.
The administration said Friday that it had reunified approximately 500 families separated at the border, but the status of thousands more separated families remained unclear.
Democratic lawmakers balked at Trump's praise after touring a border processing facility in McAllen, Texas.
Lawmakers described seeing children sleeping behind bars, on thin, padded mats on concrete floors and under emergency “Mylar” heat-resistant blankets and called on Trump to release a plan to reunite children already separated from their parents.
“I want and hope that the administration understands the sense of urgency here,” Rep. Grace Meng (D-Queens.) said after visiting kids in McAllen and meeting with a group of mothers being held at the Port Isabel ICE Detention Center near Brownsville, Texas. “Any parent knows that a day or two not talking to your kids feels like an eternity.”
Meng, the mother of two young boys, said several women broke down in tears as she spoke with them.
One mother said she was still nursing her 5-month-old baby when authorities separated them.
“I don't know what I expected, but it was very hard to see,” Meng said. “Most of them had not talked to their kids. A few were able to. Those who had, at most, know what state the kids were taken to, but know nothing about who is watching them or when they'll see them again.”
The congressional delegation visit comes days after other elected officials, including Mayor de Blasio, traveled to Tornillo, Texas, to inspect
similar facilities.
Protesters, some chanting “free the children,” also gathered at the McAllen site on Saturday. Some formed a human chain and blocked a bus carrying migrants from leaving the processing center. Children could be seen inside, pressing their hands against tinted windows.
Hundreds of protesters met Trump outside the Suncoast Hotel & Casino in Vegas with signs that read, “Put Trump in a cage,” and “I really do care why don’t you?” referencing the jacket worn by First Lady Melania Trump.
The group set up six animal kennel cages on the sidewalk and put a cardboard cutout of Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) inside one cage with the label “Dirty Dean.” Others were filled with stuffed animals.
Inside, Trump backtracked and called on Congress to take up immigration legislation — just one day after throwing a wrench in his own party’s plans to vote on a bill next week. The President tweeted Friday that Republicans, who control both the House and the Senate, are “wasting their time” on the issue until after the November midterm elections.
“I think I got elected largely because we are strong on the border,” Trump said, before admitting that he has no issues with using immigration as a political tool.
“They want to use the issue,” he said of Democrats. “And I like the issue for elections, too.”
Trump headlined a private fundraiser for Heller before his speech at the Nevada GOP convention and a separate sitdown with business leaders to discuss taxes.
Joining the President on his quick jaunt out west was Corey Lewandowski, his former top campaign aide. Lewandowski took heat last week after he appeared to mock a 10-yearold girl with Down syndrome who had been separated from her mother at the southern border.