While democrats and the media bristle at President Trumps call this weekend for illegal immigrants to be sent back without a court hearing, those critics may be forgetting one thing. The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled on the policy and the President is suggesting something that fully falls within the law.
President Trump tweeted on Sunday that “zero tolerance” is fair and gives preference to those who “legally wait their turn.”
By Dwight Widaman, Editor
“We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country,” Trump said on Twitter. “When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order.”
Trump may be referring to the fact that over the years 9 MS-13 gang members have posed as teenagers as been granted entry as well as Islamic extremists have been caught crossing the border illegally.
Democrats and immigration activists were quick to call out the notion as unconstitutional and an affront to America’s long tradition of immigration.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who has flip-flopped on the issue over the years, said Sunday at a processing center for illegal immigrants on the Texas border, that it is a “due process” issue.
“That’s not what our country stands for,” she said. “We do have a system of laws.”
But just last year the Supreme Court ruled illegal immigrants did not have the same rights as those who seek asylum using the current laws and seeking it at a port of entry where they can be vetted, and criminals prevented entry. In August of 2017, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia said they may be treated the same way as non-citizens seeking initial admission to the United States, who do not have any constitutional rights of review if denied entry.
The court ruled in the case of 28 women and 33 children ages 2 to 17 from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, who had sued the U.S. Government and had had hoped the justices would overturn a lower court’s ruling preventing them from having their expedited removal orders reviewed by a federal judge.
That court, in its ruling against the illegal immigrants, said the status of the families, all apprehended in Texas and later held in Pennsylvania, was akin to non-citizens who are denied entry at the border and they were not entitled to a court hearing to challenge that decision.
President Trump has said his aim is to follow the laws established by the U.S. Congress and upheld by the courts in how he tackles the millions of people who would like to enter the country illegally. Estimates now put the number of illegal residents in the U.S. anywhere from 14 million to 35 million a thousand more breaching the open border each day to gain entry.
Under Trump’s zero tolerance policy, which follows current immigration law, undocumented adult immigrants who did not cross at legal entry points are arrested. Until the President signed an executive order, parents were then incarcerated without their children so that the children would not suffer the consequences of the parents. The law separating children from their parents has been on the books since the Clinton administration and used by both Clinton, Bush and Obama. It received little attention by democrats or the media until it was carried out by the Trump administration. The Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement spends $35,000 per year to care for each child brought into the U.S. illegally by their parent. For 2018 that will amount to over $1 Billion Dollars. The same amount Trump has initially requested to rebuild the security fences and walls at the southern border.
Trump has said many U.S. immigration laws, are a “mockery” to law and order.
Current law includes one provision that allows an illegal immigrant who are given permanent status, the ability to bring their entire family including aunts, uncles, siblings and grandparents with them. The “chain migration” bill was signed into law by Democrat president Lyndon Johnson in 1965.
The Trump administration wants to end chain migration and follow a immigration system similar to Canada which chooses who it allows into the country based on skills and the country’s economic needs.
Currently, American immigration policy allows any one fleeing dometic abuse to apply for asylum based on humanitarian needs.
Critics have said there are numerous options for a woman who is escaping an abusive relationship in Central America to find help among family and friends in their own country and that traveling two-thousand miles to escape an abusive spouse may be excessive and not a good basis for immigration policy.
