President Trump tweeted on June 22 that he will give Immigration and Customs Enforcement two weeks to begin the deportations of thousands of illegal aliens who have missed a court date or have been served deportation orders. The deportations will start on July 6.
“At the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!” Trump said in his tweet.
The president’s announcement delays the timetable he had previously announced in a June 17 tweet, in which he said:
Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in. Mexico, using their strong immigration laws, is doing a very good job of stopping people.
Britain’s Daily Mail observed that just hours before tweeting his decision to delay the deportation actions, Trump had insisted that the raids would go forward while speaking with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. “These are people that came into the country illegally — they’ve been served and gone through a process of the courts. They have to be removed from the country, and they will be removed from the country,” Trump told the reporters.
“Everybody that came into the country illegally will be brought out of the country, very legally,” he continued.
The Daily Mail noted that in announcing the delay, Trump gave Congress an ultimatum to fix “loopholes” in the asylum process, which the British daily interpreted as the patchwork of legal restrictions that allow many Central Americans to cross the border illegally and quickly walk free if they arrive with a child.
Politico cited Representative Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, who said that Trump decided to delay implementation of his decision to begin mass deportations because “he heard a lot of concerns from some folks on the Hill.”
“The challenge is if there is a lawful deportation order, that is the law of the land and it is the job of the executive branch in our system of government to enforce the law,” the report quoted Thornberry’s statement to Martha Raddatz, co-host of ABC’s This Week With George Stephanopolous.
Thornberry also said that he hopes the Trump administration and Congress and can find a workable compromise on some immigration issues, including additional funding to take care of migrants at the border, noted Politico. “This political standoff, when it comes to immigration and border security, has got to end,” Thornberry said. “Even if we don’t agree on everything, there ought to be some steps we can take together where we do agree.”
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Warren Mass has served The New American since its launch in 1985 in several capacities, including marketing, editing, and writing. Since retiring from the staff several years ago, he has been a regular contributor to the magazine. Warren writes from Texas and can be reached at [email protected].
