Donald Trump has already got some very eager people ready to get started on a new immigration plan in line with his campaign promises.
An immigration adviser to President-elect Donald Trump and a possible candidate for a top government post wants to make some changes at the Homeland Security Department, including recreating a system that required certain immigrants, including men and boys from 25 mostly Muslim nations, to register with the federal government upon their arrival.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach met with Trump on Sunday and brought with him a detailed list of proposals for the agency tasked with enforcing immigration laws and securing the border. Kobach carried his “Department of Homeland Security Kobach Strategic Plan for First 365 Days” into his meeting with Trump. It was visible in a photograph from The Associated Press.
The top suggestion was to “update and reintroduce” the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS, for all foreigners from “high-risk” areas, a program he helped create while working for the Justice Department in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The effort, which ultimately included the registration of more than 80,000 foreigners, was widely derided by civil rights groups who said it profiled foreigners based on their race and religion.
The document, which is partially obscured by Kobach’s left arm and hand, does not specify which foreigners would be required to register as part of an NSEERS update.
Kobach did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Obama administration formally abandoned the system in April 2011, saying a newer data collection program would be sufficient to collect biometric information for all foreigners coming into the country.
Kobach’s plan also proposes adding “extreme vetting questions for high-risk” foreigners coming into the U.S. Those would include questions about a would-be visitor’s “support for Sharia law, jihad, equality of men and women, the United States constitution.”
The Kansan’s list also included ending the flow of Syrian refugees into the United States. As a candidate, Trump proposed a temporary ban on all Muslims coming into the country.
Several other suggestions for DHS were obscured in the photo, taken as Kobach was greeted by Trump.
Immigration was a top issue for Trump in his campaign to win the White House. He has yet to provide specific details about his plans to carry out campaign promises on immigration but last week announced his intention to nominate Sen. Jeff Sessions to lead the Justice Department.
Sessions, like Kobach, has helped Trump craft his stance on immigration and is also a hard-liner on the issue.
The Republican-led House of Representatives is asking the federal appeals court in Washington to delay consideration of a case involving the Obama health care law because Donald Trump has pledged to repeal and replace it when he becomes president.
The House won a ruling in U.S. district court that held the administration is illegally subsidizing medical bills for millions of people while ignoring congressional power over government spending.
The administration appealed both the substance of the ruling and whether a chamber of Congress can even mount a legal challenge.
Lawyers for the House said in their filing Monday that the appeals court should put the case on hold because there is a “significant likelihood of a change in administration position” under Trump.
The people who live in the region where the U.S. border meets the Gulf of Mexico never quite understood how Donald Trump’s great wall could ever be more than campaign rhetoric.
In interviews with media outlets, they described how erecting a concrete barrier across the entire 1,954-mile frontier with Mexico collides head-on with the geology of the Rio Grande valley, fierce local resistance, not to mention the immense cost.
That’s why an electronically fortified “virtual wall” with surveillance cameras, observation balloons and drones makes a lot more sense to people.
The locals are not convinced that a 30- to 40-foot concrete wall will cure the nation’s immigration ills. Few were surprised when the president-elect seemed to soften his position after the election, saying that the wall could include some fencing.