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You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition - April 12, 2017
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This is the April 12, 2017, edition of an email sent from November 2016 to September 2017 that covered Donald Trump's presidential transition, cabinet appointees, and the different policy positions of those individuals who may have had an effect on the new administration. Previous editions of "You're Hired" can be found here.
Immigration policy was a cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election. Today, we will review the Trump administration’s most recent actions on immigration as his first 100 days in office draw to a close.
Sessions on criminal immigration enforcement
On Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions released a memo calling on federal prosecutors to prioritize the prosecution of individuals who harbor foreign nationals residing in the U.S. illegally. Where resources are limited, Sessions wrote, cases involving the illegal transportation or harboring of three or more foreign nationals in the U.S. or violence and injury should be first addressed.
Sessions also spoke about immigration policy during a visit with Customs and Border Patrol personnel at the Nogales, Arizona, border point of entry. “For those that continue to seek improper and illegal entry into this country, be forewarned: This is a new era. This is the Trump era. The lawlessness, the abdication of the duty to enforce our immigration laws and the catch and release practices of old are over,” Sessions said.
He highlighted the following policy priorities of the Trump administration:
- In addition to the 25 immigration judges sent to detention centers along the border, 50 more immigration judges will be added to the bench. Another 75 are expected to join next year. Sessions said, “We can no longer afford to wait 18 to 24 months to get these new judges on the bench. So today, I have implemented a new, streamlined hiring plan. It requires just as much vetting as before, but reduces the timeline, reflecting the dire need to reduce the backlogs in our immigration courts.”
- One assistant U.S. attorney in every district will be identified as the border security coordinator, responsible for the criminal immigration enforcement response of his or her office.
- Sessions also encouraged prosecutors to charge, where possible, criminal foreign nationals residing in the U.S. illegally with document fraud and aggravated identity theft.
- Individuals who re-enter the country after a previous removal must be considered for felony prosecution if they illegally come into the U.S. again.
Construction of the border wall
Trump’s 2018 budget proposal called for a first investment of $2.6 billion in “in high-priority tactical infrastructure and border security technology, including funding to plan, design, and construct a physical wall along the southern border.” An internal report from the Department of Homeland Security estimated the wall would cost $21.6 billion in total and take three years to complete.
Trump also requested a supplemental increase to the 2017 budget of $1.4 billion to support the development of the border wall this year.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) indicated on March 30 that Congress would not address Trump’s request for money for a border wall until next year. “The big chunk of money for the wall, really, is...next fiscal year’s appropriations because they literally can’t start construction even this quickly,” he said.
Congressional Democrats continue to oppose the construction of a wall. Rep. Joseph Crowley, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said, “It's anywhere between $26 billion and $40 billion to build it, you can't drive on it, you can't use it for anything, it doesn't do anything to drive economic growth and jobs in America beyond the building of a wall itself, and it probably wouldn't be built using union jobs to begin with.”
Some Republicans have also questioned the efficacy and cost of the wall. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in February, “I have concerns about spending un-offset money, which adds to the debt, period. I don't think we're just going to be able to solve border security with a physical barrier because people can come under, around it and through it.”
Reps. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) and Will Hurd (R-Texas), the chair and vice chair of the House Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee, sent an oversight letter to Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney on March 21, requesting more information about the Trump administration’s initial plans for border wall construction.
“While we have both publicly stated in the past that we believe physical barriers to be one of many tools required to gain operational control of the border, we also believe that an expenditure this large, and submitted with limited details, deserves additional scrutiny to ensure funds are being used effectively in pursuit of our shared goal of securing the southwest border,” Hurd and McSally wrote.
Read more about federal policy on border security.
Weekly sanctuary city reports
On March 20, the Department of Homeland Security released its first weekly "Declined Detainer Outcome Report," highlighting jurisdictions that have not honored Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers requesting potentially removable individuals in police custody be held for an additional length of time beyond their scheduled released.
The report also included examples of criminal charges associated with these released individuals and identified the 10 counties with the most declined detainers.
The reports were suspended on Tuesday after several errors were found, including incorrectly stating that Travis County in Texas had denied 128 detainers in one week when its average denial rate was 1.8 detainers per week.
Read more about sanctuary policy preemption conflicts between the federal and local governments.
Revised immigration executive order
On March 6, Trump issued an executive order, “Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States,” that rescinded and replaced his January 27 executive order of the same name.
This order would have suspended for 90 days entry into the United States for individuals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The order also would have suspended refugee admissions to the United States for 120 days while the admissions process was reviewed for additional national security measures to implement. The order was set to go into effect on March 16.
Differences from the January 27 order included removing Iraq from the list of countries subject to the entry suspension, specifying that current visa holders were not affected, removing the indefinite suspension on admitting Syrian refugees, and allowing entry for refugees who had already been granted asylum.
The order has been challenged in several federal courts:
- On March 9, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a motion asking a federal judge to extend an existing injunction against the January 27 order to the new executive order. Ferguson said that while the ban was narrowed, it did not clear itself of constitutional problems. Ferguson announced that attorneys general from New York and Oregon would be joining in his effort to enforce the injunction against the new order. By March 30, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and California had joined the lawsuit.
- On March 15, in response to a legal challenge from the state of Hawaii, U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson blocked implementation of the executive order with a nationwide temporary restraining order (TRO). On March 30, the Department of Justice filed an appeal of Watson's decision in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral arguments were scheduled to be held before a three-judge panel of the court on May 15, 2017.
- On March 16, a federal judge in Maryland, Theodore Chuang, granted a nationwide preliminary injunction against the portion of the executive order that would have prevented Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen nationals from receiving visas. The Department of Justice appealed the case to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. On April 10, the court announced that its full bench of 15 judges would hear oral arguments in the case on May 8. Typically, in federal appellate courts, a three-judge panel will consider a case before the full bench does. The decision to hold a hearing before the full bench could have the effect of speeding up a resolution to the case.
- On March 24, U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Trenga in Virginia upheld the order, stating that it was sufficiently different from the January 27 order that it was "no longer likely that Plaintiffs can succeed on their claim that" the order was discriminatory. However, Judge Watson's TRO remained in effect.
Read more about Trump's immigration executive order issued on March 6.
See also
- You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition
- Donald Trump presidential transition team
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