Trump warns against admitting unaccompanied migrant children: ‘They’re not innocent’

05/23/2018 The Washington Post

President Trump and his top administration officials repeatedly warned Wednesday that unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the southern border are potentially exposing the nation to eventual gang crime.

Immigrant advocates have long said that the children, primarily from Central America, are fleeing violence in their home countries and seeking safe harbor in the United States. But the Trump administration has used their plight to justify cracking down on policies that allow these migrants to be released and obtain hearings before immigration judges, rather than being deported immediately.

“We have the worst immigration laws of any country, anywhere in the world,” Trump said at the roundtable held at the Morrelly Homeland Security Center. “They exploited the loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors.”

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Trump Suggests Withholding Aid to Curb Illegal Immigration

05/23/2018 The Wall Street Journal

President Donald Trump said Wednesday he wanted to cut aid for the home countries of illegal immigrants to the U.S. based on the number of their citizens who crossed the border, expanding on an earlier threat to reduce foreign aid for Central American countries.

“We’re working on a plan to deduct a lot of the aid,” Mr. Trump said at a round table event on Long Island to discuss gang violence by the Central American-tied MS-13. He added that he believed some countries actively encouraged citizens to leave for the U.S., saying, “They’re not trying to stop it…They don’t want the people that we’re getting.”

He then proposed making aid deductions on a per capita basis “every time someone comes in from a certain country.” Some immigration policy experts argue that the way to prevent migrants from coming to the U.S. is to increase aid to the region to combat poverty and gang violence.

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U.S. Pushes Plan to Make Mexico Handle Asylum Seekers

05/17/2018 New York Times

MEXICO CITY — As a large caravan of Central American migrants approached the northern border of Mexico last month, the Trump administration launched a campaign to turn back the group.

Unwelcoming statements were issued by American officials, including Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, who told migrants who intended to apply for asylum in the United States that they “should” instead seek protection in Mexico.

Mexican officials, however, said the migrants were under no legal obligation to apply in Mexico, and, indeed, more than 200 of them ended up crossing onto American soil and petitioning for sanctuary there.

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Trump Calls Some Unauthorized Immigrants ‘Animals’ in Rant via @nytimes

05/16/2018 New York Times

President Trump lashed out at undocumented immigrants during a White House meeting on Wednesday, warning in front of news cameras that dangerous people were clamoring to breach the country’s borders and branding such people “animals.”

Mr. Trump’s comments came during a round-table discussion with state and local leaders on California’s so-called sanctuary laws, which strictly limit communication between local law enforcement and federal immigration officers, and which the Trump administration is suing to invalidate. It was hardly the first time the president has spoken in racially fraught terms about immigrants, but it underscored his anger about unchecked immigration — the animating issue of his campaign and his tenure so far — and his frustration that he has not been able to do more to seal the nation’s borders.

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U.S., Mexican officials to discuss asylum pact via @politico

05/16/2018 Politico

President Donald Trump has criticized Mexico for not doing enough to stop the flow of Central American migrants toward the U.S. — but an asylum deal under discussion this week could change that.

Officials from the Trump administration and the Mexican government will meet Thursday and Friday to discuss a possible “safe third country” agreement, according to two sources, one from the Homeland Security Department and one from the Mexican government.

Under such a pact, migrants would be required to seek asylum in Mexico if they passed through that country en route to the U.S. The U.S. and Canada inked a similar deal in 2002.

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Initial deployment of Guard troops arrives at the California-Mexico border via @sdut

05/14/2018 The San Diego Union-Tribune

The initial deployment of California National Guard troops has arrived at the international border and will soon begin backing up federal law enforcement agents.

Standing before 51 troops during a Monday morning news conference, Gloria Chavez — the new Border Patrol chief in the El Centro sector — said the unarmed Operation Guardian Support soldiers would serve in support roles and won’t be asked to arrest any suspected gun runners, drug mules or immigrants crossing the border illegally.

“They’ll be assisting from behind the scenes so that our agents are able to get to the front lines and do the border security,” she said.

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Texas suit could speed DACA’s path to Supreme Court

05/10/2018 The Washington Post

Three judges have ordered the Trump administration to continue a program that has shielded hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation. Now, a lawsuit filed last week in Texas seeks to shut down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and may create a legal clash that could speed the issue’s path to the Supreme Court.

President Donald Trump’s decision in September to phase out the Obama-era program, called DACA, resulted in protests and a failed congressional effort to salvage it. Experts say it’s a matter of when, not if, the Supreme Court will rule on the program. It could be the second opportunity for the high court to weigh in on a high-profile decision of the president’s, with a ruling on Trump’s travel ban expected before the end of June.

Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston, said the Texas lawsuit filed May 1 tees up “a fast pass to the Supreme Court.”

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