As Trump struggles to curb unauthorized immigration, his rhetoric gets tougher, but quick solutions are elusive

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/as-trump-struggles-to-curb-unauthorized-immigration-his-rhetoric-gets-tougher-but-quick-solutions-are-elusive/ar-BBVGu8B?ocid=News

More than halfway through President Trump’s first term, unauthorized immigration has surged to the highest levels in a decade, leaving him searching for quick-fix solutions and his administration roiling with internal tensions over how to address a problem the president promised to solve.

Trump sought to project confidence and strength on a visit to a renovated section of border fencing in Calexico, Calif., on Friday, amid warnings from federal authorities that the U.S. immigration system is at a “breaking point” in handling a record influx of Central American families.

But his public indecision over the past week — threatening in a tweet to close the border with Mexico before reversing himself six days later — revealed an administration that is grasping to deal with a humanitarian challenge without a well-defined strategy and with significant divisions within Trump’s team.

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A sign of the discord came Friday when the White House yanked the Senate nomination of a longtime federal immigration official, Ronald Vitiello, to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a senior White House adviser, Stephen Miller, lobbied Trump to cut him loose, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Trump told reporters he would go in “a tougher direction” in finding a new nominee.

To his critics, the episodes were emblematic of the failures of a president whose policies have exacerbated the migration surge, as he has focused on outdated models of hard-line deterrence and punishment developed more than a decade ago to stop Mexican men from sneaking into the country in search of jobs. Those methods, including a border wall, are largely ineffective in keeping out the asylum-seeking families who are driving the recent immigration spike, immigration experts said.

In some cases, human smugglers have used Trump’s hard-line threats as “a sales tactic” to drum up business, warning would-be migrants that they must enter the United States before the president cracks down, said Theresa C. Brown, a career policy official at the Department of Homeland Security who left in 2011.

“He ran on, ‘No one else can fix it and I can.’ I get that. It’s very attractive to a public that has seen a complicated issue linger for a long time,” Brown said. “Except it’s not something that is easily fixable. His instincts to take hard stances and do tough talk have not had the impact he had hoped, and now he’s proposing harsher things that will hurt us as much or more than anybody else.”

But Trump aides have expressed bewilderment that a president who was vilified by his political rivals for warning of a border crisis since his 2016 campaign is now being blamed for, in their view, being right. They argue that the unwillingness of Democrats and the mainstream media to acknowledge the extent of the problem until recently has contributed to the administration’s struggles to curb the flow. They also point to opposition from Democrats to embracing any of the legislative remedies the administration has proposed, or to countering with a plan of their own, as evidence that the opposition party is more interested in making Trump look bad than in addressing the migrant surge.

“I see that some of our biggest opponents over the last two days have said, ‘You know what, it really is an emergency,’ ” Trump said during his border tour in Calexico. The border surge “is a direct result of the obstruction by Democrats in Congress.”

The administration’s reliance on increasingly tougher rhetoric and policy proposals has played out vividly over the past few months. In December and January, Trump shut down parts of the federal government for a record 35 days in an unsuccessful bid to win congressional funding for a border wall. He then declared a “national emergency” to circumvent Congress for roughly $6.7 billion for the wall and vetoed a bill passed by both chambers to overturn his order.

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Yet despite Trump’s public fight, the number of arrests at the southern border skyrocketed from 58,000 in January to nearly 100,000 in March, according to Department of Homeland Security officials.

In reaction, Trump turned up the rhetoric another notch. Last weekend, he directed the State Department to halt foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, even though experts said the move could exacerbate migration by further destabilizing those nations. And Trump’s threat to close legal ports along the 2,000-mile border with the United States’ third-largest trading partner sparked fierce opposition from Republicans and U.S. business leaders who warned of economic catastrophe.

“All of these actions alone are problematic, but when you compound them, you’re really left shaking your head,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said in an interview. Trump “lacks a fundamental understanding of how this works, and generally wants to stoke fear and racism among folks who don’t believe in offering asylum.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who visited Mexico and Central American countries in recent months, said officials cited Trump’s threats to seal the border as “driving this new surge.”

But the administration contends it has for months been warning of problems that Democrats have played down, while making no effort to work with Republicans to address an immigration system overwhelmed by the surge of migrant families.

In a four-page letter to Congress in late March requesting emergency resources, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen warned of a “dire situation” that had put the immigration system on the verge of a “meltdown.”

Federal authorities had 1,200 unaccompanied minors and 6,600 families in custody, she wrote, and had apprehended nearly 100 groups of more than 100 migrants traveling together, an unprecedented situation. “This is one of the most serious crises the Department of Homeland Security has ever faced,” she stated.

Nielsen also asked Congress to grant DHS the power to immediately deport minors from Central America, who have stronger legal protections than those from Mexico, and to detain families with children for longer than three weeks as they await asylum hearings, which can take more than a year because of court backlogs.

Speeding up deportations and detaining families, rather than releasing them into the United States — a policy Trump derisively calls “catch-and-release” — have been at the top of the administration’s immigration agenda. But those proposals are nonstarters for Democrats.

“Congress has to act. . . . They have to get rid of the whole asylum system because it doesn’t work,” Trump told reporters Friday. “And frankly, we should get rid of judges.”

Yet the president demonstrated a poor grasp of the facts during his border tour in Calexico. Referring to the 1997 Flores court settlement, which bars the federal government from detaining minors for more than 20 days, Trump blamed it on “Judge Flores, whoever you may be.”

In fact, the case was named after Jenny Flores, a 15-year-old from El Salvador.

Last November, a federal judge in San Francisco blocked the Trump administration’s attempts to ban Central Americans from seeking asylum on national security grounds. Trump’s focus on ending asylum has undermined alternatives proposed by his Republican allies, including Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), to add hundreds of immigration judges to help clear the backlog of asylum hearings.

“Trump wants a shortcut, but there’s no shortcut,” said John Sandweg, a high-ranking DHS official in the Obama administration. “We have to deal with the problem as a complex issue that requires complex solutions. It will take time and money and political will.”

Democrats say Trump’s hard-line tactics have made bipartisan compromise on immigration even more difficult. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said she believes that Trump’s aims have “never been about trying to address” the flow of migrants but rather to use immigration “as a wedge” to rally his conservative base.

On Friday, Trump’s campaign posted a video on Facebook featuring clips of Democratic presidential candidates, including former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke and Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.), opposing the border wall and rejecting the notion of a border crisis.

And on the same day Nielsen warned in her letter to Congress that migrant children, two of whom died in federal custody last fall, are arriving “sicker than ever before,” Trump mocked the asylum system at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The migrants are coached by lawyers to say, “I’m very afraid for my life,” he said, even though they look as strong and fit as “the heavyweight champion of the world.”

“It’s a big, fat con job, folks,” the president said.

Congressman Biggs Sends Letter to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen

https://biggs.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-biggs-sends-letter-dhs-secretary-kirstjen-nielsen

GILBERT, ARIZONA – Today, Congressman Biggs transmitted a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to request additional information on the release of illegal aliens onto the streets of Arizona cities and communities.

Read the text of the letter below:

April 1, 2019

The Honorable Kirstjen Nielsen

Secretary of Homeland Security

Washington, D.C. 20528

Dear Secretary Nielsen,

Thank you for your continued efforts to secure our southern border and effectively respond to the illegal immigration crisis.

I have received alarming reports that illegal aliens are being released in Arizona communities by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Border Patrol agents. A report from March 28 indicates that Border Patrol agents assigned to the Yuma Sector have begun releasing detainees on their own recognizance with little more than a notice to appear for immigration hearings. I have also received reports from agents that similar instructions have been given to release aliens apprehended and detained in the Tucson Sector. Reports at the end of 2018 indicated that more than 5,000 illegal aliens were released in Mesa between mid-October and November.

In a recent letter to my office, councilmembers from the City of Phoenix detailed that groups of illegal aliens have been dropped off by ICE at bus stations and churches with only a packet of information. The drop-offs have increased in frequency and quantity in the last several months. The drastic increase is overwhelming the community and posing a crisis to which Phoenix has no solution.

The release of these individuals should be of concern to every American, as their behavior is a flagrant exploitation of our immigration laws; our inability to properly vet and monitor them puts our communities at risk. Cities and communities should not be forced to bear the brunt of this crisis, which is inherently a federal responsibility. Moreover, I fear that this will only worsen the overall low-morale of ICE and Border Patrol agents who are grossly under-resourced and overworked.

Given these reports, I respectfully request additional information on the release of these individuals.

How does CBP and ICE determine which illegal aliens are safe to be released? Are aliens with a criminal record, no matter how minor, released?

Are aliens given any tracking device so ICE can track their movement after release?

Are aliens required to provide an address of their destination prior to release? Is that address verified? Are they required to check in with any immigration officials once they have arrived at that address?

Has Department of Homeland Security or any other agency provided resources or guidance to cities to assist them in serving or monitoring those released?

What resources, if any, are given to aliens being released?

Is DHS taking steps to identify additional detention space to prevent a greater number of aliens from being released?

Is there any other information you believe would be helpful for Members of Congress to know about this situation?

I look forward to your responses and to continuing to work with you to restore our nation’s immigration laws and gain operational control of our southern border. Please let me know if there is any way I can assist you in those efforts.

Sincerely,

Andy Biggs

Member of Congress

http://www.journalgazette.net/news/us/20190407/hard-line-aide-has-trumps-ear-as-border-tactics-flounder

Sunday, April 07, 2019 1:00 am

Hard-line aide has Trump's ear as border tactics flounder

JILL COLVIN and COLLEEN LONG | Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Tensions are rising, fingers are pointing and the search for solutions is becoming increasingly fraught.

Overwhelmed by an influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border that is taxing the immigration system, President Donald Trump is grasping for something to stem the tide.

Trump, who campaigned on a promise to secure the border, has thrown virtually every option his aides have been able to think of at the problem, to little avail. He has sent out the military, signed an emergency declaration to fund a border wall and threatened to completely seal the southern border.

On Thursday, he added a new threat, warning of hefty tariffs on cars made in Mexico if the country doesn't abide by his demands.

Now, with the encouragement of an influential aide and with his reelection campaign on the horizon, Trump is looking at personnel changes as he tries to shift blame elsewhere.

The first move was made Thursday, when the White House unexpectedly pulled back the nomination of Ron Vitiello to permanently lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where he had been acting director.

The abrupt reversal was encouraged by top Trump policy adviser Stephen Miller and seen by some as part of a larger effort to bring on aides who share Miller's hard-line immigration views.

“We may go a different way. We may have to go a very tough way,” Trump said in an interview with “Fox & Friends Weekend” that aired Saturday.

An empowered Miller is also eyeing the removal of Lee Francis Cissna, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which runs the legal immigration system, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal staffing matters. The White House did not respond to questions Friday about whether Trump was on board with that plan.

Trump has become increasingly exasperated at his inability to do more to halt the swelling numbers of migrants entering the country. Aides, too, have complained they are stymied by regulatory guardrails, legal limitations and a Congress that has scoffed at the president's requests for legislative changes.

“There is indeed an emergency on our southern border,” Trump said Friday during a visit to the southern border in Calexico, California, where his frustration was evident. “It's a colossal surge and it's overwhelming our immigration system, and we can't let that happen. So, as I say, and this is our new statement: The system is full. Can't take you anymore.”

He went on to flatly declare: “Our country is full.”

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Immigration experts say Trump's own immigration policies have caused so much chaos along the border that they may be encouraging illegal crossings. The furor over family separations last summer helped to highlight the fact that families won't be detained for long in the U.S. if they're detained at all.

And metering – in which people are asked to return to a busy port of entry on another day to seek asylum – may have encouraged asylum-seekers to cross illegally, said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

“This policy chaos, coupled with a sense that the U.S. government may at some point really shut down the border, has generated an urgency to migrate now while it is still possible,” he said.

Whatever the reasons for the migrant surge, there is a growing consensus that federal border resources are overwhelmed. While illegal border crossings are still down sharply from their peak in 2000, they have nonetheless reached a 12-year high.

While most illegal border-crossers used to be single Mexican nationals coming to the U.S. in search of work, more than half are now parents and children who have traveled from Central America to seek refuge in the U.S. Those families, along with unaccompanied children, are subject to specific laws and court settlements that prevent them from being immediately sent back to their home countries.

As a result, immigrant processing and holding centers have been overwhelmed, forcing officials to dramatically expand a practice Trump has long mocked as “catch and release.”

Indeed, ICE has set free more than 125,000 people who came into the U.S. as families since late last year and is now busing people hundreds of miles inland, releasing them at Greyhound stations and churches in cities like Albuquerque, San Antonio and Phoenix because towns close to the border already have more than they can handle.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen also has voiced increasing exasperation, equating the situation to the aftermath of a Category 5 hurricane.

“We have tried everything that we can at DHS,” she said Thursday on CNN. “We are out of the ability to manage this flow, and they need help.”

She recently called on Congress to consider changes to the immigration system. But those efforts have so far landed with a thud.

House Democrats would almost certainly reject any plans to simply deport unaccompanied minors or otherwise rewrite the law governing asylum or family detentions that they see as protecting young migrants who are often fleeing difficult conditions.

In the Senate, where Republicans have the majority, there's little interest in big legislative proposals this year, especially on a divisive issue like immigration. Trump's ideas could be especially tough for senators facing reelection in 2020 in Colorado, Arizona and North Carolina, swing states with sizable Latino and immigrant populations.

In the meantime, tensions between agencies and at the White House have been bubbling up.

At Homeland Security, officials have expressed frustration with colleagues at the Health and Human Services Department and at the Pentagon, accusing them of doing too little to help.

And there are complaints about the White House and what some see as an effort by Miller to dismantle the leadership of the department, in part to shift the blame away from the White House.

Also

Feds want 2 years to find children

SAN DIEGO – The Trump administration wants up to two years to find potentially thousands of children who were separated from their families at the border before a judge halted the practice last year, a task that it says is more laborious than previous efforts because the children are no longer in government custody.

The Justice Department said in a court filing late Friday that it will take at least a year to review about 47,000 cases of unaccompanied children taken into government custody between July 1, 2017 and June 25, 2018 – the day before U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw halted the general practice of splitting families. The administration would begin by sifting through names for traits most likely to signal separation – for example, children under 5.

The administration would provide information on separated families on a rolling basis to the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued to reunite families and criticized the proposed timeline Saturday.

Maria did says that Nunes will have breaking news on her program regarding the criminal referrals

8 referrals this week

5 straight up name someone and specific crimes leaking classified info lying to congress

3 more dealing with complicated conspiracy

1) fisa abuse numerous individuals lied to fisa court

2) manipulation of intelligence numerous indiiduals the way intelligence were used

3) global leak referral about a dozen highly sensitive leaks only given to a few reporters over 2 years