Republican
U.S President, Donald Trump has hit the ground running with some
restructuring steps, a few days after his inauguration.
President Donald Trump
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed two executive orders on
immigration and border security, which included his campaign promises of
building a wall and substantially stepping up deportations and
immigration enforcement.
The lengthy orders contained a number of provisions designed to
execute key elements of the immigration hard-liner's agenda, including
on sanctuary cities, enforcement priorities and cracking down on crime.
"Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders," Trump
told employees of the Department of Homeland Security at the
department's headquarters in Washington, where he signed the orders.
Here's a look at the important pieces of the actions signed Wednesday:
The Wall
The biggest piece of Trump's first executive order was his
long-promised wall on the border with Mexico. The measure instructs the
homeland security secretary to take "steps to immediately plan, design, and construct a physical wall along the southern border," in order to "achieve complete operational control of the southern border."
The measure includes instructions to figure out funding, including
what federal money sources exist now and what the administration will
need to request in congressional appropriations later.
The order also calls for a study within six months on securing the southern border. Trump orders construction of the wall.
Trump has said Mexico will pay for the wall, and stood by that
Wednesday, saying he would get reimbursement after building the wall
with federal funds. Negotiations, he said, would begin "relatively
soon."
"I'm telling you there will be a payment. It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form," Trump said. "We
are going to stabilize on both sides of the border and we also
understand that a strong and healthy economy in Mexico is very good for
the United States."
The order directed agencies to conduct an analysis of all federal
aid to Mexico over the past five years -- previewing Trump's vision for
gaining leverage over the neighboring country.
But the order also seemed to indicate that despite Trump repeatedly insisting he meant a physical wall, there was wiggle room.
"'Wall' shall mean a contiguous, physical wall or other similarly secure, contiguous, and impassable physical barrier," the order said in its definitions.
Deportation force
Both orders also sought to beef up enforcement agencies in terms of
staffing. The border security order instructed the Department of
Homeland Security to hire 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents, and the
other order focused on security of the interior of the nation seeks the
addition of 10,000 immigration officers.
Both, however, are "subject to available appropriations," meaning the agency will need to find funds or Congress will need to appropriate them.
The order seeks to get Border Patrol reinforcements to stations "as soon as is practicable."
The order also specifies that the additional immigration officers
should be trained to perform duties including interrogating, detaining,
arresting and searching for people believed to be non-citizens or
non-nationals.
Detention centers
The order on border security signals there could be significant
efforts to put more immigrants behind bars if they're caught illegally
crossing the border, or if they're in deportation proceedings.
The order instructs the secretary of homeland security to construct
or establish detention facilities near the border and staff them with
asylum officers and immigration judges.
It's unclear how such measures would be funded. Right now, Congress
has appropriated funding for about 34,000 beds for immigrant detention
-- many of which are in facilities operated by private companies across
the country. Meanwhile more than half a million cases are pending in
immigration court.
Wednesday's order directs the secretary of homeland security to
"allocate all legally available resources to immediately construct,
operate, control or establish contracts to construct, operate or control
facilities to detain aliens at or near the land border with Mexico."
It's likely private prison companies, which saw their stock go up after Trump's election, will be involved.
End 'catch and release'
One of the touted elements of the orders is ending what Trump calls
"catch and release," in essence guaranteeing immigrants who could be
removed from the country are continuously detained and not let free
based on humanitarian concerns.
"It is the policy of the executive branch to end the abuse of
parole and asylum provisions currently used to prevent the lawful
removal of removable aliens," the order states.
The section is heavily technical, but orders the homeland security
secretary to ensure that allowances in US immigration law to grant
individuals asylum or parole based on concerns about persecution in
their home country are not "exploited" to block deportations.
The provisions should only be used "when an individual demonstrates
urgent humanitarian reasons or a significant public benefit derived
from such parole," the order states.
This portion of the order also notes that unaccompanied children
detained at the border receive care and are sent back to their home
nations as appropriate.
A flood of unaccompanied children at the border created a crisis in
recent years, as detention facilities were unable to humanely
accommodate high numbers. The increased influx of minors crossing the
border without adults were largely fleeing violence in Central America.
Sanctuary cities
Trump's "interior" security order takes aim at so-called sanctuary
jurisdictions -- cities, states and other entities that through a range
of policies shield undocumented immigrants from federal law enforcement.
The order will "strip federal grant money from the sanctuary states
and cities that harbor illegal immigrants," according to White House
press secretary Sean Spicer in his daily briefing.
What are sanctuary cities and can they be defunded?
The order declares that entities labeled "sanctuary jurisdictions"
by the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security will be "not
eligible" for federal grants, and it directs the Office of Management
and Budget to compile federal grant money currently going to sanctuary
jurisdictions.
The order appears to apply mostly to future federal grants, though
after OMB's review, Spicer explained that the funding identified could
be taken away.
While the administration likely can't cut off all federal funding,
as much of it is disbursed through Congress, the President could put
some pressure on cities this way.
Any attempts to enact this provision will almost certainly face a
legal challenge -- past court rulings have weighed in on the government
stripping funds from states and cities to enforce policies and have
found the measures must relate to the policy in question, must promote
the general welfare and cannot be coercive.
Enforcement priorities
Trump's been saying he wants to prioritize deporting criminals for
months. That's no surprise; so did President Barack Obama. But Trump's
executive order Wednesday took a sweeping approach to defining
"criminal."
The "interior" order lays out new enforcement priorities for the
government, which go far beyond what the Obama administration followed.
The order says the priority will be removing deportable immigrants who "have
been convicted of any criminal offense; have been charged with any
criminal offense, where such charge has not been resolved; have
committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense; have
engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any
official matter or application before a governmental agency; have abused
any program related to receipt of public benefits; are subject to a
final order of removal, but who have not complied with their legal
obligation to depart the United States; or in the judgment of an
immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national
security."
Based on the wording of the executive order, a criminal could
include someone who's charged with -- but not actually convicted -- of a
crime.
The last provisions apparently include anyone who an immigration
official feels endangers "public safety or national security," even if
that person doesn't face charges -- giving wide latitude to officers.
And the term "criminal offense," isn't defined in the order and
could include a wide range of charges, including presumably
misdemeanors.
This part of the executive order is also likely to face legal
challenges from civil liberties and immigrant rights advocates, who have
long argued the government's approach to handling immigration cases
violates due process.
Secure communities
Trump's executive order revives a controversial program that ended during the Obama administration.
The "Secure Communities" program requires local authorities to
share fingerprints and other arrest data to help track down undocumented
immigrants.
Critics said it pitted law enforcement against the communities they
were charged with protecting by putting immigration enforcement in the
hands of local police. They also claimed it led to the deportations of
immigrants who were in the United States illegally but had no criminal
arrest records.
Supporters said it helped authorities catch criminals who might
otherwise fall through the cracks. Wednesday's order rolls back Obama's
Priority Enforcement Program and reinstates "Secure Communities."
International pressure
The "interior" order also includes a provision on "recalcitrant
countries" -- a technical way of describing nations that do not
cooperate in taking back nationals the US is seeking to deport.
The order directs the secretaries of homeland security and state to
put heavy pressure on those countries, including by levying sanctions
against them.
The State Department should also engage in the "maximum" legal pressure through diplomacy and negotiations, the order says.
Mark Toner, acting State Department spokesman, said the department
was reviewing the order and would work to implement it "immediately."
"Facilitating the removal of aliens who are subject to a final
order of removal, particularly those who pose a danger to national
security or public safety, is a top priority for the Department of
State," Toner said.
He also cited work done by State on the issue under the Obama administration.
"In FY2015, US government authorities successfully facilitated
the repatriation of 235,413 foreign nationals. Stepped-up diplomatic
efforts by ICE and the State Department have resulted in significant
increases in cooperation among the 23 countries currently on ICE's
Uncooperative ('Recalcitrant') list, with nearly half of these countries
improving their records of issuing travel documents, accepting charter
deportee flights with deportees, and agreeing on formal arrangements for
future removals in recent months," he said.
Publicizing crimes
The "interior" order contains two provisions to increase the public reporting of crimes related to illegal immigration.
One provision directs US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to create an "Office for Victims of Crimes Committed by Removable Aliens."
The office would offer services to victims of such crimes and to their family members, and would provide reports quarterly "studying the effects of the victimization by criminal aliens present in the United States."
Regarding sanctuary cities, another provision seeks "to better inform the public regarding the public safety threats associated with sanctuary jurisdictions,"
by using a weekly report to publish a list of crimes committed by
undocumented immigrants and name and shame jurisdictions that ignored
detention requests in relation to them.
Trump often spoke on the trail of individuals who lost loved ones
allegedly at the hands of undocumented immigrants. One such case, the
murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco, has been a central rallying cry
of sanctuary city opponents and advocates of restricting immigration.
"I have no higher duty than to protect the lives of the
American people. First, these families lost their loved ones, then they
endured a system that ignore them, while at the same time constantly
rewarding those who broke the law," Trump said at the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday.
"For these families it has been one injustice after another,
but that all turns around beginning today. We are joined here this
afternoon my parents whose children were horribly killed by individuals
living here illegally."
Culled from CNN
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