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HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY Kirstjen Nielsen has said that “everything is on the table” as the administration considered new measures to stifle immigration at the US-Mexico border and send a message that a slow-moving migrant caravan bound for the United States will not be welcome.
Nielsen addressed the Trump administration’s efforts to fortify the border while standing next to a newly constructed 30-foot fence in California.
Before she spoke, two workers wearing welding masks affixed a plaque to the barrier with the names of President Donald Trump and several high-ranking officials to commemorate what the administration calls the completion of the first phase of his border wall.
Nielsen’s trip to the border came after the Pentagon approved a request for additional troops at the southern border, expected to total at least 800 and possibly more than 1,000.
And the White House is looking at new border security measures, including one plan that would use the same mechanism as Trump’s travel ban to block migrants from seeking asylum in the US, according to two people familiar with the discussion.
They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the idea, which they stressed was still in the early planning stages and had yet to be decided.
“We are looking at every possible way within the legal construct that we have to make sure that those who don’t have the legal right to come to this country do not come in,” Nielsen said.
The president has stepped up his focus on immigration in the days leading up to the 6 November elections that will determine which party controls Congress, focusing on a caravan of migrants heading north through Mexico that is about 1,000 miles away but dwindling in size.
“I called up the military,” Trump said at a meeting of young black conservative leaders. “We’re not letting them in, they ought to go back now because we’re not.”
Any attempt by Trump to curtail the rights of migrants to seek asylum is bound to draw legal challenge.
Andrea Guerrero, executive director of Alliance San Diego, said it would be “a very drastic action that would have disastrous practical implications for our asylum obligations, for our moral and legal obligations”.
“We know that civil rights attorneys are preparing to litigate right now,” she said.
They’re preparing to litigate right away. I don’t know if (Trump) cares if he wins the litigation. He wants to score political points … it’s all part of the same political ploy to stoke fear for political reasons and build more walls.
The federal government recently completed construction on a two-mile section of fencing that’s 30-feet tall.
Nielsen called it a significant accomplishment to keep immigrants out. The structure is separate from a concrete wall prototype that the government has built near San Diego as part of Trump’s signature campaign promise during his 2016 White House campaign.
“Let me be clear: Walls work,” Nielsen said.
New details also began to emerge Friday about the military deployment on the border.
A Defense Department official said the mission is authorized from 30 October to 15 December and will operate in border areas of California, Arizona, and Texas.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not yet been publicly announced, said the troops will not be involved in detaining migrants.
In a brief written statement, the Pentagon gave several examples of assistance they would provide. These include barricades and fencing; helicopters and airplanes to move Border Patrol personnel, and medical teams to triage and treat patients and prepare them for commercial transport.
It also will provide personal protective gear and temporary housing for Border Patrol personnel.
Trump earlier this year ordered the deployment of National Guard members to the US-Mexico border to respond to a spike in illegal border crossings. But those members remain under the control of the governors of the states where they’re positioned, and their activities are limited to supportive roles, such as providing surveillance.
There already are about 2,000 National Guard troops on the border.
If the illegals manage to get to the the border watch as the women and children will be put to the front facing grim faced troops, CNN and Time will run with the photos and headline, “Trump’s America”.
@Otranto: nah, Trumps America is immigrants in camps with children separated from parents and kept in cages.
And that’s happened already.
@Otranto: And they would be correct headlines.
@Barry Somers: illegal immigrants
@Otranto: How would they be illegal and they the far side of the wall?
@Ronan Gallagher: plenty of Irish immigrants in USA illegally , should the kids be taken off parents and put in cages too?
@Otranto: so what you’re saying is women and children first is actually a liberal conspiracy?
@Barry Somers:
It was going on under Obama and enacted Bill Clinton, so what’s your point?
@Dave O Keeffe:
I didn’t say that, you just did. Read my post again and try not to put words in other people’s mouths.
@Otranto: still doesn’t make it right.
@Barry Somers: yes. Each and every one. Then reported at their expense
@Bilbo Baggins:
What is their intention once they get to the border?
@Ronan Gallagher: deported
@Yzo Sirrius:
No it doesn’t, but children cannot be placed in prisons for adults with their parents who broke the law by illegally trying to enter the US.
@Yzo Sirrius:
https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/migrant-children-in-cages-2014-photos-explained-2018-5
@Otranto: Still spoofing away..tsk.tsk.
@Ronan Gallagher: Three questions for you;
How many Irish were deported in 2017
How many overstayed their visas that same year
Has Trump been a complete and utter failure on deporting the ‘undocumented Irish’ ?
Thanks
@Otranto: you said women and children would be put to the front as if it was some kind of ploy rather than a display of human decency
I don’t know nor do I care about the figures.
In any country if people are there illegally they should be deported. Nothing to do with who is president
@Ronan Gallagher: It’s a virtually impossible task,lad..
PS; I knew that you wouldn’t have a clue about the numbers..I also knew that you wouldn’t have a clue about certain visas in the U.S.
@Francis Mc Carthy: i don’t need to know the figures. You just want an angle to post more anti Trump spiel.
I’ll ask you a question
Do you think visas and work rights are necessary or should people be let go wherever they like?
@Otranto: do you understand the difference between a minor showing up unaccompanied and a minor showing up with parents and then being separated from them?
@Pixie McMullen: So you are for open borders?
just let everyone in?
I will give you my cousin’s phone in Germany
Ask him how that’s working for them
And by the way who started the separation program and what year?Hmm?
@Ronan Gallagher: You are so far up Trumps behind that you are seeing the dust particles in the light that is passing through his ears..
Yes I do believe that ‘visas and work rights are necessary’
I also believe that the American Immigration system is a complete shambles.What do you make of it ? And how would you go about ‘fixing’ it ?
@Gene Goss: where did he say that he was for ‘open borders’ ?
Hmmm ..could you tell us more about that ‘separation program’ and what year that you are talking about ?
@Dave O Keeffe: Yes, and like I said in my post which didn’t register with you, children cannot be put in adult detention which is why they are separated, and the fact of proving that that are in fact the parents and not traffickers needs to be established. Get it?
@Otranto- “children cannot be put in adult detention which is why they are separated, and the fact of proving that that are in fact the parents and not traffickers needs to be established. Get it?”
but weren’t they doing that already before the ‘zero tolerance’ policy was enacted ? And, Isn’t it true that Trump made a ball$ of it ? Agreed?
@Otranto: Fake news. They’re all crisis actors paid for by Russians so people are reminded about the border which Trump very conveniently has finished the first section of. This is all times to coincide with the midterm elections. Are you blind you can’t see that? Qanon said so on 4chan so it must be true!
@Patrick Kearns:
Lay off the buckfast, Pajo
It`s a real pity the Native american Indian didn`t have the same legal constructs and policies a couple of hundred years ago.
@Pixie McMullen: I’m surprised Trump didn’t have ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ engraved on his glorious plaque.
@PaulineSmith: …and you expect people to take you seriously?
good to finally see a president stand up for the rule of law and willing to enforce existing ones……opposition keep saying its just a scare tactic as if that makes it ok for complete strangers to give the middle finger to a foreign countries laws….they like all countries have rules but because of the radical far lefts endgame people think they have no obligation to follow them….thankfully trump with the help of logical voters will fix this
Most illegal immigrants enter the USA via sea or air legally and just overstay.
This wall is a waste of tax payer money and would be better spent giving the USA a decent health care system, it an also be easily defeated with ladders, ropes etc.
@Barry Somers: Unless the fence also goes about 5 meters deep underground, it will be as useful as an ashtray on a motor bike, the Mexicans are very good at digging tunnels as has been evidenced in the past.
@Barry Somers: sure aren’t they tunneling experts . Trumps a Baboon
@Barry Somers: sure aren’t they tunneling experts . Trumps a Baboon
Trump doing his usual bit of ‘fake news’ and his base laps it all up :-)
That ‘fence’ has been in the ‘planning stages’ since 2009 and it’s there to replace an older barrier..hahaha
@Francis Mc Carthy: it is very fence-like isn’t it? So I’m guessing this is the one the cons were saying they just wanted to extend to cover the whole border? So all they’ve done is patch up a pre-existing fence? Keep that quiet, you know how they feel about coverage of pre-existing conditions.
@Dave O Keeffe: Here is an article from the New York Post ;https://nypost.com/2018/03/29/trump-tweets-misleading-pictures-of-border-wall/
They’ve always been in favour of “protecting” that coverage for the people ,Dave .Always :-)
Someone’s going to be doing well, selling battery powered angle grinders….
When’s he going to fill in the gaps?
That fence is nothing, steel beams? a little jet fuel will make short work of that… Wait a minute…jet fuel doesn’t melt steel beams…. Oh My God!
I apologise in advance for that stupid, tasteless and out of context meme joke.
@*The* Brendan Gordon: contrived but welcome
Still climbable by the looks of it. Where there’s a will there’s a way….
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