Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho said lawmakers who are counting on Trump to provide a presidential nudge should reconsider.
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The president continued hammering Democrats over the immigration issue, signaling he views it as a major – if not the top – campaign-trail message he will use as a bludgeon to fire up conservatives going into midterm season.
About 500 of the more than 2,300 children separated from families have been reunited, a Trump administration official told the Associated Press June 22, but it was unclear what the ongoing process to reunite families would be.
Images of children in large cages created by chain-link metal fencing and a former Walmart-turned-migrant shelter near the US border with Mexico have turned attention to the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy toward illegal entry into the country in recent weeks.
Donald Trump was never going to spend an entire week on the defensive – he just doesn’t do that.
The House is expected to vote on the more moderate bill Friday, according to multiple media reports.
And in a tweet that seemed to undermine House leaders’ efforts to round up votes, he questioned the objective of their legislation by suggesting it was doomed in the Senate anyway.
Fox’s David Bossie said that if parents “don’t become criminals, they’re not separated” from their children.
Officials said on Thursday the USA military has been asked to get ready to house up to 20,000 immigrant children. He said it was the first time since May 24 that that happened in McAllen.
Earlier in the week, Trump personally rallied members to support the immigration legislation – the product of weeks of delicate negotiations between centrists and conservatives – and told Republican lawmakers he was with them “1,000 per cent”. They would fund a wall Trump has long proposed along the border with Mexico and would also reduce legal migration.
Democrats oppose both measures as harsh.
Democrats have expressed outrage over the bill, with Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi calling it “cruel and destructive”. “It may be a compromise with the devil but it is not a compromise with Democrats”.
Even experts are having trouble figuring out what the Trump administration has done with some of these kids.
President Donald Trump said Friday that Republicans should stop “wasting their time” on immigration, suggesting they put off efforts to pass legislation until after the November elections, when he predicted more GOP members of Congress will be elected. “Republicans must get rid of the stupid Filibuster Rule-it is killing you!”
The big fear behind that effort was that the House – behind primarily Democrat votes – could pass the Hurd-Aguilar bipartisan USA Act. Sixty votes are needed to end filibusters.
Trump mostly steered clear of directly addressing the family separation issue that sparked an global backlash, although some of the parents alluded to it in their remarks.
Getting rid of the protections in the Flores settlement would only further the administration’s goal of being able to indefinitely imprison families.
While administration spokespeople were steadfast in their positions, they quickly found themselves on an island, with Republicans on Capitol Hill growing increasingly vocal in their criticism of the practice. Some said they didn’t even know where their children were. Ryan said that President Barack Obama had 60 votes in the Senate and a large majority in the House “and did nothing” to solve immigration reform.
Meanwhile, a 7-year-old boy and his mother, separated a month ago, were reunited Friday after she sued in federal court and the Justice Department agreed to release the child. It did so by eliminating the 20-day cap on holding minors and allowing indefinite detentions. The goal here is to keep the families together – but not by violating a rule that was created to set rational and compassionate immigration detention standards for children.
It is the tragedy of the immigration debate here.
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Tens of thousands of immigrants travelling with their families have been caught on the U.S. -Mexico border in recent years, many fleeing gang violence in Central America.
