Maybe it\u2019s not so easy after all. President Donald Trump\u2019s struggles to push immigration legislation through Congress and his about-face on breaking up immigrant families are putting a spotlight on his competence in carrying out his policies.<\/p>\n
The fallout from Trump\u2019s handling of the separation of immigrant children from their families, which led to a sharp reversal from the president, has been reminiscent of the chaos sparked when Trump opened his administration by imposing a travel ban on immigrants entering from majority Muslim countries.<\/p>\n
Taken together, the events demonstrate how little Trump appears to have learned or adjusted his approach after that first rocky encounter with governing. From issue to issue, from immigration to health care to trade and more, Trump\u2019s pattern has been to outline a plan with scant concern or preparation for its immediate impact or consequences, and to make changes on the fly with the same lack of planning.<\/p>\n
The result has often gone far beyond bureaucratic confusion, and has, at times, inflicted painful and unexpected consequences on people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not something that appreciates these young children and was certainly done in a \u2018ready, fire, aim\u2019 way, obviously,\u201d said Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, describing the administration\u2019s immigration policy. \u201cThere was no preparation for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump implemented a major new policy this spring with no apparent plan or new resources to handle the influx of people who would be detained and prosecuted as a result. When a public outcry ensued, the administration could not answer basic questions about it. Trump then changed the way the policy worked \u2014 leaving officials within the administration and at the border confused on how to enact the changes. Plus, it took several days for the government to say how it planned to reunite families and where the separated children were located.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s struggles on immigration follow his failure last year to repeal the so-called Obamacare law, a central tenet of GOP orthodoxy since President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2010, and the president\u2019s uneven implementation of his travel ban, which will be the subject of a Supreme Court ruling this week. New tariffs have strained relationships with European and North American allies and his Middle East peace plan is still under development amid a standoff with the Palestinians after he said the decades-old problem wouldn\u2019t be hard to solve.<\/p>\n
Trump has often mused since the 2016 presidential campaign that it would be \u201cso easy\u201d to pass a sweeping immigration law and construct a \u201cbig, beautiful\u201d border wall, paid for by Mexico. Earlier this week, he tweeted that his Democratic leadership adversaries in Congress, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, would be \u201cforced to do a real deal, so easy, that solves this long time problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the upcoming week could offer fresh evidence that the reality of governing is much more challenging.<\/p>\n
Republicans are seeking to steer an immigration bill through the House despite skepticism among conservatives and uncertainty about Trump\u2019s commitment to the plan. The president told House Republicans he was \u201c1,000 percent\u201d behind their effort last week but then suggested just three days later on Twitter that Republicans wait until after the fall midterm elections.<\/p>\n
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he received assurances from the White House during the weekend that Trump was \u201cstill 100 percent behind us.\u201d But the fate of the bill remains in doubt and it remains unclear if House Republicans could pass a narrower version that would only address the separation of children and their families.<\/p>\n
Confusion has lingered over Trump\u2019s border policy, meanwhile. After a public uproar over the \u201czero tolerance\u201d policy that led to more than 2,300 immigrant children being separated from their families near the Mexican border, the president signed an executive order last week for the children to be brought back together with their families. The order seeks to keep families together in detention instead of separating them while their legal cases are heard by the courts.<\/p>\n
A 1997 landmark case known as the Flores settlement governs how children are handled in immigration custody and generally prevents the government from keeping them in detention, even with their parents, for more than 20 days. Trump is seeking to amend the agreement to allow for families to be detained indefinitely together. But Justice Department has said the 20-day policy remains in effect until Congress or the courts take action to change that.<\/p>\n
That means if Congress fails to pass legislation or the courts decline to change the terms of the settlement, the administration could be forced to again separate the immigrant children from their parents in three weeks.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, officials have issued conflicting signals over the state of the administration\u2019s policy and some parents have said they don\u2019t yet know where there children are.<\/p>\n
Trump tweeted Sunday that the U.S. \u201ccannot allow all of these people to invade our Country.\u201d He said when someone attempts to enter illegally, \u201cwe must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order.\u201d<\/p>\n
The American Civil Liberties Union said that is both illegal and unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
Trump also continued to blame Democrats in the Republican-controlled Congress, saying House Republicans could \u201ceasily pass\u201d a strong border security bill, but it would still have to pass the Senate \u201cand for that we need 10 Democrat votes, and all they do is RESIST.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a frequent Trump critic, said the problem was larger than a partisan fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the president says that and calls them clowns and losers, how does he expect the Democrats to sit down and work with Republicans on these issues? And so words matter. What the president says matters. And he ought to knock that off,\u201d Flake said.<\/p>\n
Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University, said the federal government is not the \u201cagile instrument\u201d for policy that Trump seems to think it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to make a U-turn, then make another U-turn,\u201d Light said, adding that\u2019s exactly what Trump did last week in signing the executive order after he and other administration had insisted for days that their hands were tied and that only Congress had the power to step in and do something.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe sees decisions like ordering at McDonald\u2019s. You order, it comes, good-bye,\u201d Light said. \u201cThat\u2019s not the way government works.\u201d<\/p>\n
Corker spoke on CBS\u2019 \u201cFace the Nation,\u201d McCaul spoke on \u201cFox News Sunday\u201d and Flake appeared on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maybe it\u2019s not so easy after all. President Donald Trump\u2019s struggles to push immigration legislation through Congress and his about-face on breaking up immigrant families are putting a spotlight on his competence in carrying out his policies. The fallout from … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6245,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[232175,232470],"tags":[243902],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-immigration","category-u-s-politics","tag-trumps-anti-immigration-struggles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kohan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kohan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kohan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kohan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6245"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kohan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kohan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kohan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kohan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kohan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}