Tag: Trump fake national emergency

Trump digs in on false claim that he stopped Obama’s family separation policy

“President Obama had child separation. Take a look. The press knows it, you know it, we all know it. I didn’t have — I’m the one that stopped it. President Obama had child separation. … President Obama separated children. They had child separation. I was the one that changed it, okay?”

— President Trump, in remarks at the Oval Office, April 9, 2019

This is a Four Pinocchio claim, yet Trump keeps repeating it when he’s pressed on family separations.

Repetition can’t change reality. There is simply no comparison between Trump’s family separation policy and the border enforcement actions of the Obama and George W. Bush administrations.

The Facts

The Obama administration rejected a plan for family separations, according to Cecilia Muñoz, Obama’s top adviser for immigration. The Trump administration operated a pilot program for family separations in the El Paso area beginning in mid-2017.

View the complete April 10 article by Salvador Rizzo on The Washington Post website here.

At Southern Border, Trump Delivers Another Angry Anti-Immigrant Rant

Trump’s attacks on Central American migrants fleeing violence in their countries continued on Friday, when he falsely claimed that the United States is full and can no longer accept immigrants.

“The system is full. We can’t take you anymore,” Trump said. “Whether it’s asylum. Whether it’s anything you want. It’s illegal immigration. Can’t take you anymore. We can’t take you. Our country is full. Our area is full. Our sector is full. We can’t take you anymore, I’m sorry. So turn around. That’s the way it is.”

Trump made the remarks during a roundtable with Border Patrol officials in an area of California located on the U.S.-Mexico border.

View the complete April 5 article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.

Trump thinks auto tariffs against Mexico will solve border ‘crisis’

If the president really believes the U.S. is being “invaded” by “gang members,” a tariff sure is a weird way to respond.

In an apparent reversal on the position he so firmly stated over the weekend, President Donald Trump now says that he will not immediately shut down the U.S.-Mexico border, opting instead to wait for a year.

Although he had threatened to shut down the border this week, the president told the press at the White House on Thursday that Mexico should consider this a “one-year warning.”

While his threat to shut down the border was intended to force Mexico to stop Central American migrants from reaching the U.S. border, the president focused on drugs when he said he plans on imposing tariffs on Mexican products, “particularly cars.”

View the complete April 4 article by D. Parvaz on the ThinkProgress website here.

Marine Corps commandant says deploying troops to the border poses ‘unacceptable risk’

The commandant of the Marines has warned the Pentagon that deployments to the southwest border and funding transfers under the president’s emergency declaration, among other unexpected demands, have posed “unacceptable risk to Marine Corps combat readiness and solvency.” Continue reading “Marine Corps commandant says deploying troops to the border poses ‘unacceptable risk’”

A clear majority of Americans oppose Trump’s emergency declaration

President Trump speaks about border security in the Oval Office on Friday. Credit: Evan Vucc, AP

Friday afternoon, the president vetoed congressional opposition. Polling shows the public is also opposed.

On Friday, President Trump vetoed a measure to block his national emergency declaration. The measure passed the House and Senate with bipartisan support.

Numerous polls suggest Trump’s decision was popular among his Republican base. But his decision to use executive authority to fund a wall along the southern border is opposed by a clear majority of the public.

That is reflected in six polls taken from early January to early March. By roughly a 2-to-1 margin, Americans oppose Trump’s decision to use emergency powers to build a border wall. That’s a wider margin than the Senate resolution to overturn Trump’s declaration of a national emergency, which passed 59 to 41.

View the complete March 15 article by Emily Guskin on The Washington Post website here.

Trump tried to make the GOP border emergency fight about him. He lost anyway.

President Trump tried to marshal his most potent weapon — himself — to stave off what eventually became an embarrassing rejection from his own party over his declared national emergency on the border.

In numerous calls with Republican senators in recent days, the president spoke of the battle almost exclusively in personal terms — telling them they would be voting against him while brushing aside constitutional concerns over his attempt to reroute billions of federal dollars for a border wall. He argued that a vote against the emergency would be seen by GOP supporters as being against border security and the wall and would hurt their own political fortunes, according to a person with direct knowledge of some of the calls.

The president, along with his aides, continued to hammer that message leading up to Thursday’s Senate vote on the issue. Trump tweeted the day before that Republican senators were “overthinking” it, stressing that it was only about supporting border security. And White House aides made it clear to undecided Republicans that Trump was noticing those who chose to oppose him — particularly if they were up for reelection in 2020.

View the complete March 14 article by Seung Min Kim and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

U.S. weighs plan to phase out family detention at Texas facility, despite migration surge

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are discussing a plan to phase out family detention at the Karnes County Residential Center in Texas, according to three Homeland Security officials, a move that would significantly reduce the government’s capacity to hold parents with children as record numbers of migrant families are crossing the U.S. southern border.

ICE would instead use the Karnes facility to house easier-to-deport single adults, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that have not been finalized.

The Karnes facility is one of two large family “residential centers” ICE operates in South Texas, with a current detainee population of 528 adults and children. Families held there would be issued notices to appear in immigration court and would then be released into the U.S. interior, according to two officials with knowledge of the discussions.

View the complete March 14 article by Nick Miroff and Maria Sacchetti on The Washington Post website here.

Senate rejects border declaration in major rebuke of Trump

The Senate voted on Thursday to nix President Trump’s national emergency declaration to construct the U.S.-Mexico border wall, setting up the first veto battle with his White House.

Senators voted 59-41 to pass the resolution of disapproval blocking Trump’s declaration. Underscoring the broad base of concern over Trump’s actions within the Republican caucus, 12 GOP senators broke rank and voted with all the Democrats.

The measure passed the House last month, 245-182.

View the complete March 14 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.

Poll: Majority still opposes Trump emergency declaration

On the eve of Congress’ unprecedented rebuke of President Donald Trump, a majority of voters continue to oppose his declaration of a national emergency at the southern border, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

The poll shows that Trump has failed to build support for his declaration in the face of congressional opposition; the results are essentially unchanged since he signed an order to reallocate military funds toward construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Only 38 percent of voters support the declaration, the poll shows, down 1 percentage point from three weeks ago.

In the new poll, 52 percent of voters are opposed to the declaration, up 1 percentage point from last month.

View the complete March 13 article by Steven Shepard article on the Politico website here.

GOP wants Trump to back off on emergency

Senate Republicans are sending a pointed message to President Trump to back off from his national emergency declaration, arguing that he has $6 billion currently available from multiple funds — more than he requested — to build border barriers.

The eleventh-hour effort to persuade Trump to rescind his declaration will probably not work, but it reveals the growing anxiety within Republican ranks about a looming vote to rebuke the president’s move. It’s a tough spot for many Republicans who both don’t want to publicly cross Trump and also believe the emergency sets a bad precedent.

Republicans in the upper chamber argue the administration will have an additional $4 billion in fiscal 2020 to redirect to building border barriers when Congress replenishes a drug interdiction fund under the jurisdiction of the Defense Department.

View the complete March 6 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.