President Trump on Thursday tweeted that Congress must pass immigration laws that would allow U.S. authorities to summarily kick out would-be immigrants “just as they would if they were standing on your front lawn.”
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In three tweets, Trump called U.S. immigration laws “insane,” railed against the potential hiring of more immigration judges, said the United States is the “only Country in the World that does this,” and praised law enforcement at the border.
Trump’s call for immigration reform comes as the House last month failed to pass two GOP proposals to replace the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Trump initially asked Republicans to pass one of the bills, but later backtracked and said he “never pushed Republicans in the House to vote for the Immigration Bill.”
Border apprehensions this spring rose to around-average seasonal numbers for the past five years, just as Attorney General Jeff Sessions implemented a “zero tolerance” policy on illegal border crossings.
That policy sparked backlash from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle as more than 2,000 children were separated from their parents by U.S. authorities at the border, including separating some children from parents that were seeking asylum.
Trump gave in and signed an executive order to end the family separations, but the administration is now fighting in court for the right to indefinitely detain families until their immigration cases are heard. Right now, the law states that children can only be held for 20 days, making the process of reuniting them with their parents murky.
Migrants who cross the border legally or illegally can make a claim for asylum if they prove a credible fear of going back to their home countries.
Those claims must be first evaluated by the apprehending officer and then taken up by an immigration court, a process that in some cases can take years.
Most of the families who have crossed the border this year are from Central America, which prevents authorities from immediately turning them back once they’re apprehended at the border.
Citizens of Canada and Mexico — contiguous countries — can be summarily taken to points of entry and returned to their home countries as soon as they’re caught by the Border Patrol.
In his tweets, Trump seemed to be suggesting the same regulations apply to citizens of other countries, saying that the U.S. should be able to deport without “being forced to endure a long and costly trial.”
Trump has also previously expressed resistance to the idea of hiring more immigration judges — actually administrative employees of the Department of Justice — to more quickly process asylum claims and other immigration cases.
“Ultimately, we have to have a real border, not judges,” Trump said last month.
–Updated at 11:13 a.m.