DAN MERICA – immigrationcourtside.com

IS TRUMP DETERMINED TO “BLOW UP” DREAMER DEAL?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/29/politics/president-donald-trump-daca/index.html

Dan Mercia reports for CNN:

“West Palm Beach, Florida (CNN)President Donald Trump said Friday there will be no deal to protect hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants from deportation without funding to build a wall along the US-Mexico border.

“The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc,” Trump tweeted. “We must protect our Country at all cost!”
Trump’s declaration casts doubt over how Democrats and Republicans will come together to protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) participants — of which there are nearly 800,000 who were brought to the United States illegal as children — from deportation because it is unlikely that Democrats will agree to substantial funding for Trump’s border wall in exchange for DACA protections.

Drew Hammill, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s spokesman, responded to Trump’s tweet by stating Democrats are “not going to negotiate through the press and look forward to a serious negotiation at Wednesday’s meeting when we come back.”
Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and White House chief of staff John Kelly will meet on Wednesday, according to two sources familiar with the meeting. The top discussion topic will be renewed government spending talks, the sources said.
Trump campaigned for president on a hardline immigration platform. Chants of “Build The Wall” became a trademark of his campaign and, as president, Trump has advocated ending so-called chain migration, guidelines that allow people in the United States to bring in family members from abroad, and the visa lottery system, a program that distributes around 50,000 visas to countries where there is a low rate of immigration to the US.
Trump’s tweet is his clearest statement to date on his negotiating position with Democrats to achieve a deal on DACA, an Obama-era program that Trump ended in September. At the time, the President said he wanted Congress to step in to save the program.
Democrats and Republicans were unable to come together before the end of the year to mint a deal on the immigration program, but members of both parties will return to Washington in 2018 with the DACA program as a focus.
Any agreement would be the second major deal between Trump and Schumer and Pelosi — who Trump has taken to referring to as “Chuck and Nancy.” The trio, much to the chagrin of conservatives, worked together earlier this year to strike a deal on the debt ceiling and government spending.
Trump has previously said that McConnell and Ryan are on board with a deal to make the DACA program permanent.
The details, however, are what matter in the deal and remain elusive.”

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Read the complete article at the link.

As I have previously said, I think the Democrats are well-positioned to hold out for a “good deal” for the Dreamers when USG funding runs out in January. I personally that a “Some Wall Funding for Otherwise Clean Dreamer Bill” would be a decent deal for the Democrats to make. But, I don’t see the Dems agreeing to restrictions or reductions of legal immigration as part of a deal.

Stay tuned.

PWS

12-29-17

TRUTH IS IRRELEVANT: WHITE HOUSE STANDS BY TRUMP’S RETWEETS OF BRITISH HATE GROUP’S UNVERIFIED VIDEOS SMEARING MUSLIMS AND MIGRANTS! – “The Threat Is Real,” Says Sanders, Even If The Factual Basis Is Highly Suspect & Comes From A Known Hate Group!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/29/politics/trump-anti-muslim-tweets/index.html

Dan Merica reports for CNN:

“Washington (CNN)White House press secretary Sarah Sanders defended President Donald Trump’s decision to retweet a series of anti-Muslim videos from a British far-right account on Wednesday morning, telling reporters he circulated them to start a conversation about border security and immigration.

Sanders also said she doesn’t know how the videos got in front of Trump and wouldn’t say whether they were real.

“Whether it is a real video, the threat is real,” Sanders told a small group of reporters after appearing on Fox News. “That is what the President is talking about, that is what the President is focused on is dealing with those real threats, and those are real no matter how you look at it.”

When pressed on whether it matters if the video is real, Sanders said reporters were “focusing on the wrong thing.”

“The threat is real,” she said, later adding that “the threat needs to be addressed. The threat has to be talked about and that is what the President is doing in bringing that up.”

Trump retweets anti-Muslim videos

The retweets have once again thrust his administration into conversation about anti-Muslim bias as the courts are weighing the legality of Trump’s travel ban and raised questions about how content swirling on the Internet ends up on the President’s powerful Twitter account.

“I think his goal is to promote strong borders and strong national security,” Sanders said. She later added that she and the reporters were talking about border security so Trump’s tweets were “accomplishing exactly that.”

Trump’s account retweeted the tweets early on Wednesday morning. The messages from Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, purport to show Muslims assaulting people and smashing a statue of the Virgin Mary.

A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Theresa May said Wednesday that Trump was “wrong” to retweet anti-Muslim videos, adding that Fransen’s organization “seeks to divide communities through their use of hateful narratives which peddle lies and stoke tensions.”

Sanders said she was not aware of any concerns from Trump that his retweets could damage his relationship with May.

“I think that both Theresa May and a lot of the other world leaders across the world know that these are real threats that we have to talk about, I think Europe has seen that a lot first hand,” Sanders said before the statement from May’s spokesperson was widely public.

Sanders added she was unaware of how the videos got in front of Trump but the process generally hinges on Dan Scavino, Trump’s director of social media and one of the few aides with the keys to Trump’s powerful social media platforms.

. . . .

The origin of these tweets is significant because Trump’s messages — from the benign to the inflammatory — have an impact on how the United States is viewed around the world and how policy is implemented.

For example, Wednesday’s retweets could imperial a key Trump goal: Banning immigration from eight countries, including majority Muslim nations like Chad, Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.

The Supreme Court is considering whether to allow the third version of Trump’s travel ban to go into effect. Government lawyers have argued that the policy is not a “Muslim ban,” despite Trump’s call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” during the 2016 campaign.

Lawyers arguing against the ban, though, have said that said government lawyers can’t “divorce the Proclamation from its history and context,” pointing to the President’s part statements which they argue color his views on a travel ban.

Neal Katyal, one of the lawyers opposing the ban, responded to Trump’s retweets with a simple, “Thanks! See you in court next week.”

Trump is no stranger to anti-Islam comments that has roiled his supporters and critics alike.

During the 2016 election, Trump told CNN that he believes “Islam hates us,” a comment that rankled some Republicans.

“There’s something there that — there’s a tremendous hatred there,” Trump said. “There’s a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. There’s an unbelievable hatred of us.”

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Read the complete article at the link.

Gosh, why would they hate a country with a leader like Trump? And, the idea that Trump wants a “serious discussion” on anything, particularly immigration and terrorism, is totally absurd.

The truth is that there are approximately 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, the vast majority of whom are not Islamic terrorists and who could be potential allies in combatting terrorism. Needlessly insulting them and inflaming anti-Muslim public opinion can’t possibly be a smart or “winning” strategy.

PWS

11-29-17

TAL KOPAN AND DAN MERICA ON CNN: On Cue, Trump Uses NY Terrorist Attack To Reignite Immigration Debate!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/01/politics/donald-trump-chuck-schumer-nyc-attack/index.html

Tal & Dan write:

“Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump, during a White House Cabinet meeting Wednesday, said he wants to terminate the Diversity Visa Lottery, a program that distributes around 50,000 visas to countries where there is a low rate of immigration to the US.

“I am, today, starting the process of terminating the diversity lottery program,” Trump said, seated next to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. “I am going to ask Congress to immediately initiate work to get rid of this program, diversity lottery, diversity lottery. Sounds nice, it is not nice, it is not good. It hasn’t been good and we have been against it.”

He added: “We’re going to quickly as possible get rid of chain migration and move to a merit-based system.”

Trump added that based on preliminary information, the attacker in New York “was the point of contact, the primary point of contact for, and this is preliminarily, 23 people, that came in or potentially came in with him and that is not acceptable.”

PHOTOS: Manhattan truck attack

. . . .

Trump later tweeted that he was ordering his Department of Homeland Security to “step up our already Extreme Vetting Program.”

It was not clear what program the President was referring to. Reached Tuesday night, DHS referred all questions on the “vetting” order to the White House, which did not respond to questions.

Soon after Trump tweeted Wednesday morning, Schumer responded with a tweet of his own: “I guess it’s not too soon to politicize a tragedy.”

Schumer also accused the President of “politicizing and dividing America” and urged him to focus “on the real solution — anti-terrorism funding — which he proposed cutting in his most recent budget.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said at a Wednesday morning news conference that the President’s tweets were “not helpful.”

“I don’t think they were factual. I think they tend to point fingers and politicize the situation,” he said. “You play into the hands of the terrorist to the extent that you disrupt, divide and frighten people in the society. The tone now should be the opposite — on all levels.”

Trump’s decision to address immigration policy hours after the terrorist attack is markedly different than the tack the White House took after a shooter in Las Vegas opened fire on a concert last month, killing 58.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, asked about gun control policy the day after the shooting in Las Vegas, dismissed the idea of talking about policy so soon after a shooting.

“We haven’t had the moment to have a deep dive on the policy part of that,” Sanders said. “We’ve been focused on the fact that we had a severe tragedy in our country. And this is a day of mourning, a time of bringing our country together, and that’s been the focus of the administration this morning.”

Pressed on why Trump brought up the travel ban hours after shootings in Orlando and San Bernardino, Sanders added at the time, “I think there’s a difference between being a candidate and being the President.”

. . . .

Democrats slammed Trump on Wednesday for quickly turning to immigration after the terror attack.

“This has become the pattern for President Trump, dating back to the campaign,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, told MSNBC. “No matter where an attack happens around the world, whether it’s in the United States, Europe, he immediately goes to questions about immigration.”

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Read the full article at the link.

Four people on the school bus had minor injuries after the truck crashed into it, a police official said. After hitting the bus, the driver exited the truck and was shot by police while displaying imitation firearms, according to the NYPD.

From a “Trumpian” standpoint, I guess it’s always a good time to blame immigrants.

PWS

11-01-17

Police direct people away from the scene.

Police officers stand next to a body covered under a white sheet.

The driver of the truck drove the wrong way down the West Side Highway bike path for several blocks, according to two senior law enforcement sources at the New York Police Department. After striking multiple people, the driver hit a school bus and wrecked the truck, an NYPD official said.

Bicycles and debris are scattered on the bike path.

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