TRUMP AGENDA - Immigration

Based on fear, unfairly targets 'the others' as a danger to America.  A betrayal of American values.

"What do Trump's new orders on immigration really do?" PBS NewsHour 1/25/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  President Trump is tackling one of his election promises by ordering a border wall and cracking down on illegal immigration by stripping funding from “sanctuary cities” and ending a policy of releasing undocumented immigrants.  Judy Woodruff gets views on what these moves mean from Marielena Hincapie of the National Immigration Law Center and Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  We take a deeper look now at President Trump's executive actions on immigration and border security with Marielena Hincapie, the executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.  It's an immigrant rights group.  And Jessica Vaughan, she's from the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for tougher border security.

And we welcome both of you to the program.

Marielena, I'm going to start with you.

Overall reaction to what the President had to say today?

MARIELENA HINCAPIE, Executive Director, National Immigration Law Center:  Well, Judy, we are — we find this announcement today as an extremist policy.

I think President Trump's campaign rhetoric that was anti-immigrant, xenophobic, anti-refugee, anti-Muslim today is becoming a harsh reality.  And it's sending a message of great fear to immigrant communities across the country.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Jessica Vaughan, reaction to what he had to say overall?

JESSICA VAUGHAN, Center for Immigration Studies:  This is a very impressive set of actions.  He really went big.

But that is what was needed to restore integrity to our immigration system, and to not only secure the border, but also restart interior enforcement, which has collapsed in the last few years, and shine that not only do we need border security, but it has to be backed up by policies that make sure that people cannot game our system.

You know, the end to the catch and release system that's been in place for the last few years is going to make a big difference in deterring future illegal immigration.  And that's important.  We needed to start sending that message to people that they aren't going to be able to get away with just getting to the United States, getting in, and then being home-free from enforcement.