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2594d ago / 9:30 PM UTC

Trump Signs Executive Order to Start Wall Construction, but It's Not That Simple

IMMIGRATION

Trump signed an executive order ordering construction to begin on the southern border of the United States, as well as ordering the hiring of 15,000 immigration officials and Border Patrol agents. He doesn't yet have the budget (Reuters reported that based on an internal DHS report, it would cost as much as $21.6 billion and take more than three years to construct) and there's a number of other barriers to building, well, the kind of barrier he's proposed.

Benjy Sarlin reports:

The wall was the headline grabber, but it could take years to plan, fund, and build, and faces serious geographic and legal constraints along the way. Much of the border, especially in Texas, runs along private property, through state and national parks, and through areas with natural barriers that already limit illegal crossings.

2435d ago / 6:45 PM UTC

House GOP Approves $1.6 Billion for Trump’s Wall

IMMIGRATION

The House passed a $788 billion spending bill Thursday that combines a $1.6 billion down payment for President Donald Trump's controversial border wall with Mexico with a whopping budget increase for the Pentagon.

The 235-192 vote both eases a large backlog of unfinished spending bills and gives Trump and his House GOP allies political wins heading into the August recess. Challenging hurdles remain in front of the measure, however, which will meet with more powerful Democratic opposition in the Senate.

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2444d ago / 10:40 PM UTC

Supreme Court Allows Broader Family Exceptions to Trump Travel Ban

IMMIGRATION

The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday cleared the way for a broader list of family exceptions to President Trump's ban on issuing visas to people in six Muslim-majority countries.

The justices declined to put a halt to a ruling by a federal judge in Hawaii who said grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, and siblings-in-law must be added to the list of close family members who can still get visas to travel to the U.S. during the 90 days while Trump's executive order is in force.

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2461d ago / 2:13 PM UTC

White House Champions Immigration Crackdown as Public Safety Win

IMMIGRATION

The White House spent an entire day last week telling reporters that the president is “keeping his promises,” and indeed the president is cracking down on undocumented immigrants. Arrests of undocumented immigrants are up, and border crossings are down — a phenomenon his administration credits to the “uncertainty” about how immigration will be handled under the new president.

The president has championed this crackdown as key to making America safer, something that would surely be part of making the country “great again.” He’s launched an office to support victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, met with victims of such crimes at the White House last week, and celebrated the passage of two House bills that boost his efforts.

He championed two House bills which passed last week that would crack down on undocumented immigrants who commit crime , as well. There’s just one hitch: there’s no evidence undocumented immigrants are a public safety risk.  On the contrary, there’s evidence that immigrants — both legal and undocumented — commit crimes at a lower rate than native-born Americans.  

 

2527d ago / 5:16 PM UTC

100 Days In: How's Trump Doing on Immigration?

IMMIGRATION

Status: Limited direct action, some early progress

Trump has made some progress but the results are mixed: Deportations are up and southern border crossings are down, but the oft-promised "big, beautiful wall" between the U.S. and Mexico lacks funding. Despite Trump's promises on the campaign trail, Mexico says IT will not pay.

Trump signed an executive order authorizing construction to begin, but the government has just $20 million — enough for about seven miles of the wall — in its coffers, according to ProPublica. House Speaker Paul Ryan’s budget doesn’t include the money for it either, signaling that the president may struggle to get his own party on board.

Meanwhile, border apprehensions are down an unprecedented 70 percent over two months, according to Homeland Secretary John Kelly, who credits Trump’s tough rhetoric for adding “enough confusion” to slow crossings.

Domestically, the administration is more aggressively deporting undocumented immigrants, with immigration arrests rising by a third in the first weeks of Trump’s administration.

While Trump promised that he’d focus on deporting criminals, the uptick in deportations is in part fueled by the removal of twice as many immigrants without criminal records as compared to last year, according to data obtained by the Washington Post. The president has not eliminated the deferred action programs for childhood arrivals and the parents of American citizens — earning criticism from his supporters.

Trump also used an executive order to block federal funds from going to cities that limit federal immigration enforcement in their jurisdictions in January, but a judge put a temporary stop to it in late April, saying the president had overstepped his power in the order.

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2585d ago / 5:25 AM UTC

Fact Check: Trump Says Immigrants Cost Taxpayers Billions. But They Give Back More Over Time

IMMIGRATION

“According to the National Academy of Sciences, our current immigration system costs America's taxpayers many billions of dollars a year," President Trump said.

The Facts: Estimating the cost of immigrants is tough, but the study Trump cites on immigration found that first-generation immigrants do cost taxpayers about $57 billion a year. However, second and third-generation immigrants become a boon to government coffers, adding $30 billion and $223 billion dollars a year. The report said immigration was “integral to the nation’s economic growth,” and particularly praised high-skilled workers, who create jobs and have a significant “positive effect” on the economy.

2594d ago / 8:00 PM UTC

The Promise: Fix America's Immigration System By Building the Wall, Deporting Millions

IMMIGRATION

President Donald Trump rooted his White House bid in a vow to curb immigration, rework the nation's broken system, and deport millions. His repeated condemnation of undocumented immigrants — particularly those from Mexico — featured heavily in his year-long campaign. 

With chants of "build the wall" rising from campaign rallies across the nation, Trump promised repeatedly to deport the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living here and to make Mexico pay for a "big, beautiful wall" between the two countries. Trump, making unsubstantiated claims of higher rates of crime and violence perpetrated by immigrants, also promised to do away with so-called "Sanctuary Cities," communities that offer a measure of protection from deportation to undocumented immigrants. 

As terror attacks rocked different parts of the world in the months leading up to the election, Trump also said immigration reform would make the nation safer, advocating for a Muslim ban that he later retooled as a travel ban on people from countries with a "history of terrorism." Thus far, executive orders have targeted both legal and illegal immigration.