For those supporters who believed Donald Trump would fulfill his campaign promise to curb immigration, the feeling of failure must be sinking in. Under his watch immigration hasn’t declined it’s actually grown. Kirstjen Nielsen may be under the bus but Trump has only the man in his mirror to blame for the current mess. NBC writes:
- The number of migrant families at the border is surging.
- Trump still doesn’t have his border wall, even though Democrats offered him $25 billion for it in return for DACA being signed into law.
- The administration continues to reel from its one-time practice of separating migrant children from their families.
- And oh, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history took place due to the president’s insistence of a border wall (which he still doesn’t have).
Just today Trump tweeted:
More apprehensions (captures) at the Southern Border than in many years. Border Patrol amazing!
Country is FULL!System has been broken for many years. Democrats in Congress must agree to fix loopholes – No Open Borders (Crimes & Drugs). Will Close Southern Border If necessary. Mexico must apprehend all illegals and not let them make the long march up to the United States, or we will have no other choice than to Close the Border and/or institute Tariffs. Our Country is FULL!
If it is indeed full, that happened on Trump’s watch. The New York Times reports it has been a direct result of his policies.
“The current surge was totally predictable and the Trump administration chose not to prepare for it. Instead it launched a raft of harsh deterrence measures that were totally ineffective,” said Wayne Cornelius, a migration scholar at the University of California, San Diego.
He and other critics said the administration had focused on measures to discourage migrants, including restricting their entry at border stations and requiring some asylum applicants to wait in Mexico while their cases are processed, instead of planning humane border reception facilities and working seriously to diminish the violence and poverty in Central America that is driving the migrations.
And now we can apparently expect more hardline policies in the future. White House Advisor Stephen Miller is said to be the “architect” of Trump’s immigration policies and it looks like he wants to dive deeper into immigration battle. Insiders say moving Nielsen aside was just the beginning.
No matter who is hired to try and implement Trump’s (and Miller’s) policies it may be a losing battle. The NYT writes that Trump often wants officials to carry out actions that aren’t even legal.
The president called Ms. Nielsen at home early in the mornings to demand that she take action to stop migrants from entering the country, including doing things that were clearly illegal, such as blocking all migrants from seeking asylum. She repeatedly noted the limitations imposed on her department by federal laws, court settlements and international obligations.
Those responses only infuriated Mr. Trump further.
