By Jill Colvin, Paul J. Weber and Michelle L. Price | Associated Press
EDINBURG, Texas — Donald Trump returned to the U.S.-Mexico border for a visit Sunday as he promotes a hard-line immigration agenda that would be far more expansive than the policies he pursued during his first term as president.
Before making remarks in Edinburg, Texas, Trump served meals to Texas National Guard soldiers, troopers and others who will be stationed at the border over Thanksgiving. He was joined by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, a longtime ally and fellow border hawk who is expected to endorse the front-runner for the 2024 nomination during the visit, according to a person close to Trump who spoke on condition of anonymity before a formal announcement.
Trump and Abbott handed out tacos, and the former president shook hands and posed for pictures. They planned to speak to about 150 supporters outside an airport hangar in the town, which is roughly 30 miles from the border.
Trump has been laying out immigration proposals that would mark a dramatic escalation of the approach he used in office and that drew alarms from civil rights activists and numerous court challenges.
“On my first day back in the White House, I will terminate every open-borders policy of the Biden administration. I will stop the invasion on our southern border and begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he said in Iowa Saturday.
He also wants to:
• revive and expand his controversial travel ban, which initially targeted seven Muslim-majority countries. Trump’s initial executive order was fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld what Trump complained was a “watered down” version that included travelers from North Korea and some Venezuelan officials.
• begin new “ideological screening” for all immigrants, aiming to bar “Christian-hating communists and Marxists” and “dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots and maniacs” from entering the United States. “Those who come to and join our country must love our country,” he has said.
• bar those who support Hamas. “If you empathize with radical Islamic terrorists and extremists, you’re disqualified,” Trump says. “If you want to abolish the state of Israel, you’re disqualified. If you support Hamas or any ideology that’s having to do with that or any of the other really sick thoughts that go through people’s minds — very dangerous thoughts — you’re disqualified.”
• deport immigrants living in the country who harbor “jihadist sympathies” and send immigration agents to “pro-jihadist demonstrations” to identify violators. He would target foreign nationals on college campuses and revoke the student visas of those who express anti-American or antisemitic views.
• invoke the Alien Enemies Act to remove from the United States all known or suspected gang members and drug dealers. That law was used to justify internment camps in World War II. It allows the president to unilaterally detain and deport people who are not U.S. citizens.
• end the constitutional right to birthright citizenship by signing an executive order his first day in office that would codify a legally untested reinterpretation of the 14th …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
