President Donald Trump launched on Sunday yet another aggressive attack on unauthorized immigrants and the judicial system that processes them. The president said that anyone who crosses the border illegally should be sent right back without any kind of due process. According to him, the US “cannot allow these people to invade our country”.
“When someone comes in, we must right away without any appearance in front of a judge or a case in court send them back where they came from” the president added.
Trump has over the last few weeks unleashed a barrage of tough immigration rhetoric after his “zero tolerance” policy on immigration raised uproar across the country from both Democrats and Republicans due to child separations. The president signed an executive order last week in an effort to stop the separations but it seems his tough talk on immigration will continue. In addition to this, despite the executive order, there’s still confusion on the border as to how the separated children will be reunited with their families.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that over 2,300 children had already been separated from their parents. The affected parents may now have to deal with a long bureaucratic process in order to get their kids back. Also, the Trump administration has not been clear on the location of these children. Trump’s latest sentiments come as the House gets ready to vote on a sweeping immigration bill this week.
The president’s reaction to the nationwide outcry on child separations has however been consistent with how he usually reacts when criticized. Instead of owning up to a policy that was approved by his Attorney General in May this year, the president went on the offensive deflecting from the matter and blaming Democrats and Congress in general.
Sources close to the president have also revealed Trump’s frustration with the state of immigration. It’s emerging that the president sought to know from his aides why he can’t create an overreaching executive order to solve the immigration problems. But aides have had to explain to him that a full immigration overhaul is beyond his executive powers.
Trump’s latest call to ignore due-process for illegal immigrants raised a number of constitutional questions and dissent from Republicans in Congress. Some GOP members think that the number of immigration judges hearing such cases at the border should be increased in order for these issues to be resolved quicker. As of May this year, federal immigration courts had a backlog of nearly 700,000 cases. The cases can take months before they are finalized.
GOP senator Ted Cruz of Texas had proposed a new bill that could have increased the number of federal immigration judges at the border to 750 but the bill didn’t come to a vote. Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican of Wisconsin, also proposed increasing the number of immigration judges at the border by an additional 225 from the current 74. The House bill at the moment could provide enhanced border security and a path to citizenship for young, undocumented immigrants.
