Past 48 Hours: Trump Pushes Anti-Immigrant Agenda, Lost Track of 1,500 Immigrant Children
September 19, 2018
The Trump administration continues to push its anti-immigrant agenda. Here’s some of the worst developments over just the past 48 hours alone:
The Trump administration lost track of 1,500 more immigrant children.
New York Times: “The Trump administration is unable to account for the whereabouts of nearly 1,500 migrant children who illegally entered the United States alone this year and were placed with sponsors after leaving federal shelters, according to congressional findings released on Tuesday.”
Trump suggested he would use unilateral executive powers to continue to push his anti-immigrant agenda before the midterms.
The Hill: “President Trump hinted in an interview with Hill.TV that he will use his executive powers to do more on immigration before the midterm elections. ‘I’ll be doing things over the next two weeks having to do with immigration, which I think you’ll be very impressed at,’ the president said during an exclusive 45-minute Oval Office interview on Tuesday with Hill.TV.”
The Trump administration announced they would cap the number of refugees that can enter the country at the lowest level in the program’s history.
New York Times: “President Trump plans to cap the number of refugees that can be resettled in the United States next year at 30,000, his administration announced on Monday, further cutting an already drastically scaled-back program that offers protection to foreigners fleeing violence and persecution. … The number represents the lowest ceiling a president has placed on the refugee program since its creation in 1980, and a reduction of a third from the 45,000-person limit that Mr. Trump set for 2018.”
New documents exposed the Trump administration for adding a citizenship question to the Census after consulting with anti-immigration hardliners.
Mother Jones: “However, new documents released as part of a lawsuit by New York state against the Trump administration directly contradict Ross’s public comments, showing that the commerce secretary repeatedly lobbied the Justice Department to add the citizenship question after consulting with anti-immigration hardliners.”
A Trump administration official stood by his comments that immigrant detention centers are like “summer camp.”
CNN: “A senior Trump administration official on Tuesday stood by his controversial comments comparing the detention centers for immigrant families to ‘summer camp,’ but declined to answer whether he’d send his own children there.”