Trump Gave a Very Special Easter Present to Mexico
In an Easter Sunday tweet that seemed to end the possibility of any agreement being reached to settle the status of the illegal immigrants known colloquially as “Dreamers,” President Trump announced he would not accept any deal that continued the Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Trump’s tweet came amid news of a “caravan” of individuals moving through Mexico that’s allegedly seeking to illegally cross the border into the United States or seek political asylum, as well as speculation regarding possible upcoming negotiations on NAFTA.
“Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release,” the president said in the tweet, referring to policies where illegal immigrants taken into custody are released while awaiting a hearing with an immigration judge.
“Getting more dangerous,” the tweet continued. “‘Caravans’ coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!”
Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. “Caravans” coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2018
The president also threatened to shut down NAFTA if the Mexican government didn’t act.
Mexico is doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S. They laugh at our dumb immigration laws. They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2018
The tweet sparked an immediate reaction from Democrats — perhaps the angriest from Rep. Keith Ellison, the controversial Minnesota representative who was in the running for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee last year. Unsurprisingly, Ellison contended Trump was a racist.
.@realDonaldTrump ‘NO MORE DACA DEAL’?!! You were never doing a DACA deal. Your actions gave you away: cancelling DACA with no plan, making racist comments about Black/Brown immigrants, ejecting several by bipartisan deals. You didn’t fool anybody. https://t.co/65zya1vAvS
— Keith Ellison (@keithellison) April 1, 2018
“‘NO MORE DACA DEAL’?!!” Ellison tweeted.
“You were never doing a DACA deal. Your actions gave you away: cancelling DACA with no plan, making racist comments about Black/Brown immigrants, ejecting several by bipartisan deals. You didn’t fool anybody.”
The caravan Trump referred to involves a group of individuals identifying themselves as Pueblos Sin Fronteras (People Without Borders).
The unauthorized caravan has traveled through Mexico with no impediment from local authorities. In the first report on the caravan — titled “A Huge Caravan Of Central Americans Is Headed For The US, And No One In Mexico Dares To Stop Them” — BuzzFeed News estimated that 80 percent of the individuals are Honduran.
“For five days now hundreds of Central Americans — children, women, and men, most of them from Honduras — have boldly crossed immigration checkpoints, military bases, and police in a desperate, sometimes chaotic march toward the United States,” the report from Adolfo Flores read. “Despite their being in Mexico without authorization, no one has made any effort to stop them.”
“Organizers like Rodrigo Abeja hope that the sheer size of the crowd will give immigration authorities and criminals pause before trying to stop them,” Flores added, noting that Abeja told the group of roughly 1,200 individuals that, “If we all protect each other we’ll get through this together.”
The group hopes that they can either seek asylum due to the violence in their home countries or that the Border Patrol and ICE will somehow look the other way. The most likely outcome, however, is a lengthy court challenge to the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
If so, Trump’s Easter Sunday tweet may be the first salvo to Mexico, essentially ordering them to fix the problem before it starts. The BuzzFeed piece details the utter unwillingness of any Mexican officials to enforce the country’s laws on the members of Pueblos Sin Fronteras.
DACA and assorted protections for illegal immigrants are likely to be on the table when it comes to the Trump administration’s negotiations with Mexico on NAFTA and border security. Could the president’s tweet then be considered part of that? Or could Trump simply have lost patience with Democrats and the government of Mexican President Nieto?
It remains to be seen, and one hopes it’s the former. NAFTA renegotiations may need to be made, but the trade agreement still can be a great tool for free trade. One thing’s for sure, however: The Democrats and Mexico probably weren’t terribly happy over their Easter present.
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