For Trump, Politics Trumps Problem Solving
President Trump and lead nativist advisor Stephen Miller are flailing and furious about the administration’s continued failures on their signature hardline immigration issue. Their cruel and simplistic deterrence-only approaches have exacerbated the complicated challenges posed by Central Americans seeking asylum and refuge. Now, Trump and Miller are set to put their draconian vision into overdrive.
In a chilling piece titled “Trump White House plots amped-up immigration crackdown,” POLITICO highlights how Stephen Miller is leading the charge to “take controversial new steps to curb illegal immigration, including an updated version of his furiously criticized family separation policy (click through for additional details about the crisis they are set to inflame and exploit).
And Jake Tapper reported for CNN yesterday that President Trump last week “told border agents to not let migrants in. Tell them we don’t have the capacity, he said. If judges give you trouble, say, ‘Sorry, judge, I can’t do it. We don’t have the room’” – measures that, of course, would be blatantly unconstitutional and illegal.
These details, alongside the purge of a host of DHS officials, underscores the current anxiety of Trump and Miller on their signature issue. Yes, these approaches would inflame the current situation and are doomed to fail. But this failure, and the resultant chaos, is part of the Trump/Miller vision in order to justify sweeping new anti-immigrant measures and as part of the Trump 2020 re-election plan.
Douglas Rivlin, Communications Director, America’s Voice said:
They want it to get worse. They want the chaos at the border to be front and center in their voters’ minds and their unflinchingly harsh approach to children and families seeking asylum. They’ve created the crisis and want to inflame it even further, thinking that they can win if they make the elections a referendum on immigrants, asylum seekers and Trump’s position that the country is “full” and can take no more immigrants with or without visas. That every policy Trump and Miller want is either impossible, illegal or immoral is beside the point. The real 2020 story on immigration should be that Trump’s policies are both spectacularly cruel and spectacularly ineffective except in causing more misery for children and families already in desperation. Americans already recoiled against family separations once before and xenophobia backfired big time in 2018, but it’s clear the Trump White House and Stephen Miller aren’t prepared to adjust course.
