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Trump Says Forget Judges -- As Soon as Aliens Cross Illegally, Send Them Right Back

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Once again, President Donald Trump has used Twitter to infuriate his critics and fire up his supporters.

The president used seemingly the only topic covered by the media in the past three weeks — the detention of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S. border — to make his boldest declaration yet about the never-ending problem, proposing immediate deportation of illegal immigrants from the border.

In a tweet on Sunday, Trump said a porous border makes a mockery of the struggles of legal immigrants to enter America.

“Our Immigration policy, laughed at all over the world, is very unfair to all of those people who have gone through the system legally and are waiting on line for years! Immigration must be based on merit — we need people who will help to Make America Great Again!” Trump tweeted.

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The tweet was immediately met with criticism by those who say the president would be denying illegals their right of due process as guaranteed by the Constitution.

Would you support a policy of immediately sending illegal immigrants back to their home country?
The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment states “any person” in the country shall not be deprived of due process of law, and several Supreme Court decisions have ruled that undocumented immigrants are granted the same rights as U.S. citizens.

But those rights apply to undocumented immigrants already in the country.

As Daniel Fisher of Forbes noted in an article last year about the constitutionality of Trump’s travel ban, there’s an important distinction between the rights of someone trying to enter the country as opposed to those already here.

“They’re subject to immigration law, under which the executive branch has broad authority to determine whether it wants them in the country or not,” Fisher wrote of incoming immigrants. “And until they’ve passed through immigration control, they aren’t technically on U.S. soil.”

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Which means, the president would argue that under immigration law, anyone detained at a border crossing can be sent back to Mexico or their native country without requiring due process.

It would be an emotional legal battle if the president pushes for what he proposed in his Sunday morning tweet, and one that would almost certainly be put before the Supreme Court.

Clearly the president is getting tougher in his border policies to try and get some type of immigration reform passed by Congress. That will require the cooperation of Democrats, who thus far seem to enjoy the chaos and the media criticism the situation at the border is causing the White House.

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Scott Kelnhofer is a writer for The Western Journal and Conservative Tribune. A native of Milwaukee, he currently resides in Phoenix.
Scott Kelnhofer is a writer for The Western Journal and Conservative Tribune. He has more than 20 years of experience in print and broadcast journalism. A native of Milwaukee, he has resided in Phoenix since 2012.
Location
Phoenix, Arizona
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Media, Sports, Business Trends




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