President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated his call for removing immigrants who cross the border into the United States without due process and compared them to people who trespass on “your front lawn.”
“When people, with or without children, enter our Country, they must be told to leave without our Country being forced to endure a long and costly trial,” he wrote in a series of tweets about immigration on Thursday. “Tell the people ’OUT,’ and they must leave, just as they would if they were standing on your front lawn.”
He called on Congress to pass “smart, fast and reasonable” immigration laws while lauding Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for their great work even though “the laws they are forced to work with are insane.”
The president also railed that hiring thousands of judges doesn’t work “and is not acceptable – only Country in the World that does this!”
He concluded in a third tweet: “Congress – FIX OUR INSANE IMMIGRATION LAWS NOW!”
Trump raised the idea of tossing immigrants without giving them a chance to appear before a judge in a tweet last month, referring to them as invading the country and suggesting they be sent back “immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases.”
Some Democrats and thousands of protesters rallied across the country over the weekend in opposition to Trump’s immigration policies that have resulted in children being separated from their parents at the border.
Many have called for ICE to be abolished while others have suggested its role be examined and changes made to its mission.
Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Thursday blamed Congress, the courts and migrant parents themselves for the administration’s child separation policy — and repeatedly refused to say how many had been reunited with their families.
Instead, Azar hailed his own department for the “excellent” care the detained migrant children were receiving from his department, and boasted that HHS “knows the identity and location of every minor in our care.”
“We are meeting the needs of unaccompanied alien children in our custody,” he said during a conference call with reporters.
“They’re providing excellent care in a safe supervised environment with access to athletics,” he said, adding that they get “three meals a day plus two snacks.”
Asked why the administration bore no blame for the separations – which followed Trump’s decision to adopt a “zero tolerance” policy toward illegal immigrants, Azar laid the blame on the migrant parents.
“The simplest way to avoid this is to follow our laws, and respect our border,” he said, while insisting that “none of want children separated from their parents.”
Asked at least three times how many children had been reunited, Azar would not provide a number.
But he insisted that HHS would work diligently to comply with a federal judge’s deadline that children from birth to age 4 be reunited by a court-ordered deadline of Tuesday, and that those age 5 to 17 be reunited with a parent, relative or guardian by July 26.
He repeated reports that parents and children were undergoing DNA testing to ensure that they were actually related.
