GET READY NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY — Trump & Miller Planning All-Out White Nationalist Assault On Constitution, Rule Of Law, Asylum, Immigrants, & People Of Color!

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/08/trump-immigration-agency-head-1332660

 

Trump White House plots amped-up immigration crackdown

The purge of Homeland Security leaders will allow the president to shift direction on policy.

President Donald Trump’s dramatic purge of Homeland Security leaders is about more than personnel: It helps clear the way for him to take controversial new steps to curb illegal immigration, including an updated version of his furiously criticized family separation policy.

Leading the new charge is Trump’s top White House immigration aide Stephen Miller, who wants tent cities to house migrants on the border and is pressing to extend the amount of time U.S. immigration officials can detain migrant children beyond the current 20-day limit imposed by a federal judge. Miller wants to force migrant parents arrested at the border to choose between splitting apart from their children or remaining together indefinitely in detention while awaiting court proceedings, according to five people familiar with the plans.

Those hard-line policies could get new traction after a major staffing shakeup at the Homeland Security Department over the past several days. Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned Sunday and Secret Service Director Randolph Alles was ousted Monday. Those moves came after the White House on Friday unexpectedly withdrew its nominee for director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Ronald Vitiello. Other officials could be on the chopping block in coming days, according to three other people familiar with the White House’s considerations.

The dramatic proposals and leadership purge are politically risky — family separation has sparked more political anger than almost any other issue in Trump’s presidency — and come as Trump has alarmed his fellow Republicans with abrupt threats to kill Obamacare and to shut down the border. But Trump is determined to make immigration central to his reelection push, betting that he can once again energize his core conservative voters on a promise to secure America’s borders.

Trump and Miller have become increasingly frustrated as the number of Central American migrants massing at the southwest border surges to levels not seen in a decade. Now Miller — who’s even started calling mid-level federal officials to demand they do more to stem the influx — will have a new opportunity to pursue his tougher approach amid the leadership vacuum at DHS.

Trump said Sunday that Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan would become acting DHS secretary. Other top DHS positions currently filled by acting officials will be the deputy secretary, ICE director, inspector general and administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Three of those jobs lack a nominee from the White House.

Miller did not respond to a request for comment.

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a plan to send certain non-Mexican asylum seekers back to Mexico while they await a resolution to their case. The order will not be effective until Friday evening, which allows the administration a chance for a quick appeal.

Still, Miller has a set of new policies he wants to try, according to the five people familiar with the plans, including a “binary choice” between separation or joint detention for families, an idea that first surfaced in the run-up to the midterm elections. Miller also wants to fast-track the regulation that would allow migrant children to be detained for longer than the 20-day limit. He’s eager to finalize the so-called public charge rule, which could block immigrants from obtaining a green card if they’ve received public benefits in the past or are deemed likely to do so in the future.

In addition, Miller has pressed for the federal government to set up tent cities along the border, so that cases can be swiftly resolved — and migrants with non-meritorious claims can be deported.

He’s also pushing for the purge at DHS to continue.

“If you lose Claire, and John, and Francis, I don’t know where that leaves us. But it’s not in a good place,” this person said.

At least some of the personnel moves are getting pushback from immigration restrictionist groups, who like Cissna’s approach.

Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a grassroots organization that seeks lower levels of immigration, said he’s confounded by reports that Cissna may be removed from his post at USCIS.

“He’s great. He’s worked in this issue for years, he’s extremely knowledgeable,” Beck said. “He’s exactly the type of person who needs to be in DHS in leadership.”

But Miller has pressed Cissna, unsuccessfully, to launch more experimentally and legally questionable policies, according to three people familiar with the situation.

Cissna’s defenders contend that he tried to adhere to the law while Miller pressed to overstep legal boundaries.

“If they push out the uber-competent guy that the left hates because he’s getting things done within the law and the right loves because he’s actually being faithful to the president’s campaign promises, they’re even bigger idiots than we already know,” one former DHS official said.

Eliana Johnson, Gabby Orr, Josh Gerstein and Daniel Lippman contributed to this report.

 

MARY PAPENFUSS & PROFESSOR LAWRENCE LESSIG @ HUFFPOST: TRUMP & THE GOP ARE THE REAL EXISTENTIAL THREATS TO NATIONAL SECURITY! — ““The fools are they who enable this constitutional immorality,” Lessig wrote. “Those fools are the Senate Republicans, who have placed party over country, and President Trump over the Republican Party.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lawrence-lessig-donald-trump-national-emergency_us_5c32b2eae4b0d75a98320eae

Papenfuss reports:

Constitutional law expert and Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig dismissed President Donald Trump’s characterization of the immigrant situation at the Mexican border as a crisis on Sunday, then said the real national emergency was “this president.”

Asked about Trump’s threat to declare a national emergency on the southern border so that he can order his wall built without congressional approval, Lessig told MSNBC: “The man is using words that have no connection to reality.”

“He says we have a national crisis … a national emergency. I agree we have a national emergency, but the emergency is this president,” Lessig added. “The emergency is the fact we don’t have an executive who’s exercising his power in a responsible way.”

Lessig said the president can’t build his wall without the backing of Congress.

“Ultimately he has no constitutional authority to exercise the power to build this wall without Congress’ approval,” Lessig said. “These statutes were certainly not written with the intent to give a man like Donald Trump the power that he’s now claiming.”

In an opinion piece Lessig published in The Guardian on Friday, he said the Constitution would not uphold the actions of a president who shut down the government to insist on a program that was not supported by the public. Lessing referred to the situation as a “veto-ocracy,” ruled by “petulance” rather than “principle.”

If the Republicans support Trump in this, they are saying that any president can “support whatever policy he likes,” including, say, to nationalize health insurance.

“The fools are they who enable this constitutional immorality,” Lessig wrote. “Those fools are the Senate Republicans, who have placed party over country, and President Trump over the Republican Party.”

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Part of the blame for this unprecedented national disaster belongs to the Supremes’ majority for their shockingly spineless performance in the “Travel Ban Case.” By failing to stand up for the Constitution in the face of Trump’s clear record of religious and racial bias and the rest of his White Nationalist hokum, their message was clear.

Whenever Trump doesn’t want to follow the law or is thwarted by Constitutional separation of powers, all he needs to do is declare another totally bogus “national emergency.” Will the GOP appointees keep looking away while the Constitution and our republic crumble before this unscrupulous madman? Or, will Chief Justice Roberts and some of the “Gang of Five” make good on Roberts’s recent claim that “there are no GOP or Democratic Federal Judges?”

Last time it was Muslims and refugees; this time, it’s asylum seekers, kids, and families in Trump’s crosshairs; next time, maybe he’ll come for the Supremes themselves. If so, they shouldn’t look to the immoral and cowardly GOP Senate for any help!

PWS

01-08-19