White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is doubling down on the administration’s argument judges aren’t necessary for illegal immigrants, saying just because migrants don’t see a judge doesn’t mean they are getting due process.
‘Just because you don’t see a judge doesn’t mean you aren’t receiving due process,’ she said at her briefing on Monday.
She didn’t elaborate on how that process worked.
‘Thousands of illegal aliens are removed every month without seeing an immigration judge as a result of procedures and the law including voluntary removal and expedited removal,’ she said.
Sanders didn’t expand with details when asked to do so.
‘There are others ways for removal. There are thousands of illegal aliens removed every month that don’t see judges – sometimes that’s through voluntarily removal and sometimes that’s through expedited removal,’ she said.
‘The president’s ultimate goal is that we have a secure border and not come into the country illegally.’
‘Just because you don’t see a judge doesn’t mean you aren’t receiving due process,’ Sanders said at her briefing on Monday
President Donald Trump said Monday afternoon he wanted a system that worked and was ‘simple.’
President Donald Trump said Monday afternoon he wanted a system that worked and was ‘simple.’
‘We want a system where when people come in illegally, they have to go out,’ he said during an Oval Office meeting with the king of Jordan. ‘A nice simple system that works. You know, Mexico holds people for four hours, for five hours for two hours, and they’re gone. We have people for four or five, six years, and they never leave.’
He added: ‘What we have is very simple. We want strong borders and we want no crime. Strong borders. We want no crime. The Democrats want open borders and they don’t care about crime. And they don’t care about our military. I care about our military. That’s what we want and that’s what we’re going to get. And we’re going to get it sooner than people think.’
Sanders did say illegals seeking asylum would be heard.
‘if somebody comes through a port of entry seeking asylum those cases and that process will be heard,’ Sanders said.
The White House press secretary repeatedly tried to kick the can down Pennsylvania Avenue to put responsibility on Congress.
‘Are we walking around making up laws? No, because we’re not the Obama administration,’ she said. ‘We’re actually trying to enforce the laws on the books. We’re asking Congress to do its part in the process.’
President Donald Trump is digging in on his demand thatillegal immigrants be turned away from the border without a hearing and that kids must be kicked back to.
‘This is the only real answer,’ the president argued in a series of tweets Monday morning.
The president first pushed the policy of sending illegals back without due process in a tweet on Sunday, which led to questions about the legality of that option and if Trump had the authority to make such a decision.
He is sticking to his guns and aggressively pushing the idea again, complaining that hiring thousands of judges and a long legal process is not the way to proceed.
Since Trump’s administration announced the ‘zero tolerance’ crack down on illegal immigrants in April, he and his officials have fought off criticism about the separation of migrant children from their families from both Republicans and Democrats.
The president signed an executive order last week ending the family separations but his newest push – to deny due process to illegals – is likely to gin up a new round of outrage.
Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard, told The New York Times via email that the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that ‘the due process requirements of the Fifth and 14th Amendments apply to all persons, including those in the U.S. unlawfully.’
‘Trump is making the tyrannical claim that he has the right to serve as prosecutor, judge and jury with respect to all those who enter our country,’ Tribe said. ‘That is a breathtaking assertion of unbounded power — power without any plausible limit.’
Justice Department lawyers under both Democratic and Republican presidents have argued that noncitizens apprehended at the border lack due process protections, Adam Cox, a law professor at New York University, told the Times, and the Supreme Court has never clearly resolved the dispute.
And Trump is digging in his heels as House Republicans prepare to vote on a comprehensive immigration package this week that some members fear doesn’t have the support for passage.
Some Republicans in Congress – in contrast to the president – have called for more judges to be in place so migrant families can have their cases heard more quickly.
Federal immigration courts had a backlog of more than 700,000 cases in May, and the cases can take months or years to be heard.
There are less than 400 judges assigned to immigration cases, according to the website Polifact.
Trump’s executive order calls for families to be held together until their case is heard, meaning illegals could be in government custody for years. That requirement of the president’s is expected to face legal challenges, however, as the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement says illegals can only be held 20 days.
Criminal prosecutions for illegally crossing the southwestern border jumped to 8,298 in April, the month Attorney General Jeff Session announced the zero-tolerance policy, an increase of 30 percent from March, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research institute at Syracuse University.
As of June 20th, the Department of Health and Human Service has 2,053 separated minors being held in its facilities. Thus far 522 migrant children have been reunited with their families.
In the meantime, lawsuits are plying up against the administration on the issue and some Republicans don’t expect Trump’s executive order to with stand legal challenges.