Homeland Security secretary drafts plan to end family separations
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is drafting an executive action for President Donald Trump that would direct her department to keep families together in detention after they are detained crossing the border illegally, according to two people familiar with her thinking.
Governors pull National Guard from US-Mexico border over immigration policy
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — East Coast governors from both parties are refusing to deploy National Guard resources to the U.S.-Mexico border in protest of a federal immigration policy that is separating children from their families.Some of the states have no more than a handful of resources committed.
President Trump, GOP leaders strain for migrant-kids solution
WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers and President Donald Trump searched anxiously Tuesday evening for a way to end the administration's policy of separating families after illegal border crossings, with their focus shifting to a new plan to keep children in detention longer than now permitted — but with their parents.GOP House leaders, increasingly fearful of voter reaction in November, met with President Trump for about an hour at the Capitol to try to work out some resolution."We had a great meeting," he called out as he left, but he gave no other information on possible progress.Leaders in both the House and Senate are struggling to shield the party's lawmakers from the public outcry over images of children taken from migrant parents and held in cages at the border.
Recording that appears to capture voices of children crying at immigration facility adds to outrage
BROWNSVILLE, Texas — An audio recording that appears to capture the heartbreaking voices of small Spanish-speaking children crying out for their parents at a U.S. immigration facility took center stage Monday in the growing uproar over President Donald Trump's administration's policy of separating immigrant children from their parents."Papa!
'The US will not be a migrant camp:' Pres. Trump digs in on immigration amid family separation crisis
WASHINGTON — An unapologetic President Donald Trump defended his administration's border-protection policies Monday in the face of rising national outrage over the forced separation of migrant children from their parents.
Spokeswoman: Melania Trump 'hates to see' children separated from their families at borders
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- First lady Melania Trump is wading into the emotional controversy over policies enacted by her husband's administration that have increased the number of migrant children being separated from their parents.Mrs.
Hundreds of children wait in Border Patrol facility in Texas
McALLEN, Texas — Hundreds of children are waiting away from their parents inside a Border Patrol holding facility in South Texas, with groups of 20 or more children to a single cage.
GOP moderate: Tentative immigration deal with conservatives
WASHINGTON — A leader of House moderates said Thursday that a tentative deal with conservatives has emerged to help young "Dreamer" immigrants stay in the U.S. legally.
President Trump calls for border legislation using 'nuclear option'
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Donald Trump demanded Monday that Congress pass new border legislation using the "Nuclear Option if necessary" to muscle it through the Senate — a drastic change in rules the Republican leader has previously dismissed.President Trump tweeted that the U.S. must build a border wall, but argued that "Democrats want No Borders, hence drugs and crime!" He also said that a deal to help "Dreamer" immigrants is "dead because the Democrats didn't care or act."President Trump has previously called for the "nuclear option" — changing Senate rules to end the filibuster.
Trump administration sues California over 'sanctuary' laws
CALIFORNIA -- The Trump administration is suing to block California laws that extend protections for immigrants living in the United States illegally.The lawsuit says three state laws intentionally undermine federal immigration law.
Senate rejects immigration plan by bipartisan senators
WASHINGTON — A divided Senate rejected a bipartisan plan Thursday to help young "Dreamer" immigrants and parcel out money for the wall President Donald Trump wants with Mexico, as Republican leaders joined with the White House and scuttled what seemed the likeliest chance for sweeping immigration legislation this election year.The vote came after the White House threatened to veto the measure and underscored that the issue, a hot button for both parties, remained as intractable as it's been for years.
Congress takes on immigration issue amid election pressures
WASHINGTON — The Senate begins a rare, open-ended debate on immigration and the fate of the "Dreamer" immigrants on Monday, and Republican senators say they'll introduce President Donald Trump's plan.
Pres. Trump support vital as Congress tackles immigration issue
WASHINGTON — The Senate will open up a rare, open-ended debate on immigration and the fate of the "Dreamer" immigrants on Monday.
Pres. Trump's chief of staff: Some immigrants 'too afraid, lazy' to sign up for DACA
WASHINGTON — Some immigrants may have been "too afraid" or "too lazy" to sign up for the Obama-era program that offers protection from deportation, White House chief of staff John Kelly said Tuesday as he defended President Donald Trump's proposal on the divisive issue.Kelly discounted the possibility that President Trump would announce a temporary extension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program beyond March 5, when its protections could expire.
Bipartisan immigration bill surfaces, Pres. Trump knocks it down
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan immigration proposal surfaced Monday in the Senate, only to be quickly knocked down by President Donald Trump via Twitter.
Pres. Trump's immigration proposal draws criticism from top Senate Dem; AG Sessions discusses priorities in Virginia
WASHINGTON — The Senate's top Democrat dismissed President Donald Trump's immigration proposal as a "wish list" for hard-liners on Friday as the plan drew harsh reviews from Democrats and some conservatives.Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., expressed satisfaction that President Trump had provided some clarity to his immigration goals, which have befuddled members of both parties and hindered progress in Congress.
Chuck Schumer pulls back offer of $25B for Pres. Trump's border wall in new immigration push
WASHINGTON — Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer on Tuesday pulled back an offer of $25 billion for President Donald Trump's long-promised southern border wall, as lawmakers scrambled to figure out how to push a deal to protect 700,000 or more so-called Dreamer immigrants from deportation.Schumer had made the offer last Friday in a last-ditch effort to head off a government shutdown, then came scalding criticism from his party's liberal activist base that Democrats had given up too easily in reopening the government without more concrete promises on immigration."We're going to have to start on a new basis, and the wall offer's off the table," Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters Tuesday.The shutdown battle — settled mostly on President Trump's terms — complicated the already difficult search for an immigration pact: GOP hard-liners appeared emboldened, while Democrats absorbed withering criticism from progressives.
President Trump meets with GOP senators on immigration, calls so-called chain migration "a gateway for terrorism"
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said so-called chain migration provides "a gateway for terrorism" Thursday as he sat down with a handful of Republican senators to talk immigration.Lawmakers have been trying to hammer out a deal on how to extend legal status for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children and had been protected from deportation by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.President Trump announced he would be ending the program last year, but gave Congress a March deadline to come up with a legislative fix.President Trump said Thursday that any deal he signs will need to include funding for his border wall, more money for immigration enforcement, an overhaul of the family-based immigration system and an end to the diversity visa lottery.President Trump told the lawmakers that he would "love to take care of DACA, but we're only going to do it under these conditions.""Chain migration is a total disaster which threatens our security and our economy and provides a gateway for terrorism," he said, referring to the current system that allows many immigrants to sponsor their extended family members.President Trump also said he hoped the overhaul will attract Democratic support."It would be really nice to do it in a bipartisan way," he told those gathered, which included John Cornyn of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.A separate group of Senate Republicans is scheduled to sit down with President Trump on Thursday afternoon to discuss the budget and other legislative priorities for the year.
"Not going to happen:" Mitch McConnell says no government shutdown this week over immigration
WASHINGTON — Testing the resolve of Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared Sunday there won't be a government shutdown this week over the question of protecting immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, describing it as a "non-emergency" to be addressed next year."There's not going to be a government shutdown.
Milwaukee not among 23 places OK'd for immigration training
MILWAUKEE -- Federal officials approved requests this week by nearly two dozen jurisdictions to train jail deputies as immigration agents but not one from Milwaukee County, whose former sheriff is a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump.The county's omission Tuesday from the list of 23 jurisdictions nationwide was notable because of former Sheriff David Clarke's ties to President Trump and his hardline stance on immigration.