Sanders: Plan to send illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities under 'thorough' review

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/sanders-plan-to-ship-illegal-immigrants-to-sanctuary-cities-under-thorough-review

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed to "Fox News Sunday" that President Trump's prospective plan to send illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities is undergoing a "complete and thorough review," days after Democrats who have fought to protect illegal immigrants from federal authorities characterized the possible move as a dangerous stunt.

Sanders also made clear that Trump has no intention of backing down from his fierce criticism of Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar, who last month appeared to downplay the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Trump had responded to reports Friday that his administration proposed releasing immigrant detainees to sanctuary cities by not only confirming the plan, but saying it remains under “strong” consideration. Further, the president tweeted that relocating illegal immigrants to these districts should make the "Radical Left" happy.

"Nobody thinks that this is the ideal solution," Sanders began. "But until we can fix the crisis at the border, we have to look at all options. This is one of them. Whether or not it moves forward – that’s yet to be determined. This was raised at a staff level, initially, and pushed back on. The president wants us to explore it again, and that’s being done, and they’re doing a complete and thorough review. "

Sanders added: "The president has asked them to do everything they can and everything they’re allowed to do under the law to stop the massive crisis we have at our southern border. It’s the same thing he says publicly day in and day out, and it’s the same thing he says behind closed doors to staff – is figure out how we stop this crisis, how we fix this problem, let’s look for every possible option to do so, and that’s what our team has been doing."

Democrats, Sanders asserted, have no plan on immigration other than to "fight the president."

On Saturday, Trump wrote on Twitter: "Just out: The USA has the absolute legal right to have apprehended illegal immigrants transferred to Sanctuary Cities. We hereby demand that they be taken care of at the highest level, especially by the State of California, which is well known or its poor management & high taxes!"

"It's a sad day in America when the Mexican government is willing to do more for the United States' illegal immigration problem than Democrats in Congress," Sanders said.

In another shot at Democrats in Congress, Sanders vowed that Trump would "continue to call out" Omar, whom Sanders charged unabashedly "continues to make anti-Semitic comments over and over again." Top Democrats have defended Omar and accused Trump of anti-Muslim bigotry.

Omar, speaking last month at a Council of American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] fundraiser, described the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as an episode in which "some people did something" – prompting Trump to tweet out searing images of the hijacked planes flying headlong into the World Trade Center, along with the words, "WE WILL NEVER FORGET."

"The president's not trying to incite violence against anybody; he’s actually speaking out against it," Sanders said, referring to Democrats' charges that Trump was drawing attention to Omar as an anti-Muslim dog whistle. "The question is, why isn’t the congresswoman, why is she brushing this off dismissively? She continues to make anti-Semitic comments over and over again and Democrats refuse to call her out for it."

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Top Democrats have criticized Omar's anti-Semitic remarks, but last month pointedly omitted her name from a resolution that was initially drafted to respond to her comments. The resolution ultimately condemned hatred and bigotry "of all kinds," as part of what Republicans called a concession to the radical left.

"If she continues to do it, the president will continue to call her out – call her out by name," Sanders told host Christ Wallace. "He’s not going to be ashamed, nor should he be. The only shame I see in this is that Democrats and others aren’t standing up and taking the same hard line that the president is."

Separately, Sanders slammed Democrats' requests for Trump's tax returns as "political partisanship," and said Trump was merely joking when he spoke favorably of WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential campaign, when the organization published leaked emails that revealed the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had worked to help then-candidate Hillary Clinton defeat Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary.

The emails also contained a slew of embarrassing internal campaign communications.

"Look, clearly the president was making a joke during the 2016 campaign," Sanders said, referring to Trump saying that he "loved" WikiLeaks. "Certainly, we take this seriously. In fact, our administration is the only one that’s done anything about it. Let’s not forget that the reason Julian Assange is being looked at, is because of the engagement he had with Chelsea Manning. That individual is the person that the Obama administration commuted their sentence. We’re the only ones that have taken this whole process seriously in actually doing something to solve the problem."

Graham reveals plans to overhaul US asylum laws in effort to halt migration crisis

Andrew O'Reilly | Fox News

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/graham-reveals-plans-to-overhaul-u-s-asylum-laws-in-effort-to-halt-migration-crisis

Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Sunday that he is currently working on a drastic overhaul of the United States’ asylum laws in an effort to deal with the ongoing migration crisis at the country’s southern border with Mexico.

While Graham, R-S.C., agreed with President Trump’s call for more U.S. troops on the border and the need for a physical barrier, he argued that the only way to make real progress in combatting the flow of migrants over the southern border is to change laws regarding how and when the U.S. grants asylum.

If I were the president I'd send military troops to the border as soon as I could in large numbers,” Graham said during an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “But we're never going to stop this by just having walls and troops at the border. We have to change our laws so these people stop coming.”

Graham bemoaned a number of current U.S. policies for exasperating the immigration crisis, including one that prohibits sending migrant children from a number of Central American nations back to their home country.

“We need to be sending these kids back to Central America where they come from,” he said. “So I'm going to put a legislative package together right after the break. We're going to mark it up in the Judiciary Committee and we're going to get on with solving this problem.”

Graham added: “I've got to get a package that will deter people from Central America from continuing to come, change our asylum laws, make sure you have more than 20 days to deal with an unaccompanied minor and send people back to Central America.”

Trump considers sending immigrants to sanctuary citiesVideo

While the South Carolina lawmaker did not give an exact date to when he planned to introduce the legislation to committee when the Senate returns from break, he made clear that both the White House and Republican leaders in the Senate were reaching out to their Democratic colleagues in an attempt to gain bipartisan support for the package.

“The administration is going around Congress talking to Democrats about what they want if we do change the laws, what they would like in return,” Graham said. “I'm going to try to find a compromise here.”

He added: “What we're doing is not working, the crisis has to come to an end and the only way to bring it to an end is to change our laws and I'll be introducing a package to change the laws that attract so many illegal immigrants from Central America and hopefully we'll get democratic support.

Sarah Sanders on Trump's threat to send detained migrants to sanctuary cities, release of Mueller reportVideo

Graham’s comments come only days after Trump floated the idea to send immigrants from the border to "sanctuary cities" to exact revenge on Democratic foes.

The plan would put thousands of immigrants in cities that are not only welcoming to them, but also more likely to rebuff federal officials carrying out deportation orders. Many of these locations have more resources to help immigrants make their legal cases to stay in the United States than smaller cities, with some of the nation's biggest immigration advocacy groups based in places like San Francisco, New York City and Chicago. The downside for the immigrants would be a high cost of living in the cities.

On Sunday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the president wants to explore a twice-dismissed proposal to send migrants to "sanctuary cities," but it was not the preferred solution to fix the straining immigration system.

“Nobody thinks that this is the ideal solution. But until we can fix the crisis at the border, we have to look at all options,” Sanders said on “Fox News Sunday.” “This is one of them. Whether or not it moves forward, that’s yet to be determined. This was raised at a staff level, initially, and pushed back on. The president wants us to explore it again, and that’s being done, and they’re doing a complete and thorough review.”