Trump Promised a Wall and Delivered an Amnesty

President Trump promised the country a wall but instead delivered the biggest amnesty since 1986. Amnesty in this case doesn’t mean citizenship, it means de facto legal status by creating a new protected class of illegal aliens who are immune to detention, prosecution, and deportation.... Here are the worst of the immigration provisions of the spending bill passed last week:

• Provides for a massive, open-ended amnesty that encourages trafficking in children.
• Expands “catch and release,” wherein Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents catch illegal aliens and then very quickly releases them into the interior of the country, mostly never to be heard from again, except when they apply for amnesty or are arrested for other crimes.
• Slashes funding to ICE for beds for detainees from 49,060 to 40,520.
• Gives veto power over wall construction to deep blue, anti-border enforcement towns. Got that? The scant 55 miles of wall approved for the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, can be vetoed unilaterally by local authorities.

The spending bill President Trump signed Friday gave the open borders crowd much of what it wants. But surely the worst—practically, politically, and morally—is Section 224(a), which provides that “None of the funds provided by this Act or any other Act . . . may be used by the Secretary of Homeland Security to place in detention, remove, refer for a decision whether to initiate removal proceedings, or initiate removal proceedings against a sponsor, potential sponsor, or member of a household of a sponsor or potential sponsor of an unaccompanied alien child . . .”

This is the provision that amounts to an amnesty. But in some ways it’s even worse than a straight amnesty, because it’s an open-ended promise that gives amnesty not only to those already here, but also to those who might come in the future and claim rights under this section. Worse still, it invites a huge surge in child trafficking as many of those seeking this benefit will do anything to take advantage of Trump’s giveaway....

The president who was elected by the forgotten middle of the country on promises to build a wall, enforce immigration laws, and protect their economic interests just signed into law a bill that betrays all of those promises. If you’re wondering where the center of political power is in Washington these days, it’s in the House Speaker’s office not in the Oval Office.

But I might be too optimistic. “It’s not fully accurate to say this bill is amnesty,” says Daniel Horowitz, senior editor at Conservative Review. “It’s worse than amnesty. Amnesty is a reprieve for a transgression of the past. This bill prospectively invites 15 million illegals to engage in human smuggling in order to obtain de facto permanent status here.” Human nature being what it is, this amnesty provision encourages adults to enter the United States illegally with children or to obtain children when they get here via human smugglers and then claim that they are Unaccompanied Minors (“UAC”).

The law creates an incentive to traffic in children and turns them into commodities—golden tickets that shield adults from law enforcement....

And while the wall, when constructed, will make it more difficult, the incentives to get into the country are actually higher than ever before....

Worse, it threatens to make Trump appear weak and ineffectual to undecided voters. The fact that he did nothing on border wall funding while Republicans controlled Congress and waited until Democrats controlled the House will strike many potential Trump supporters as too cute by half....

That will alienate a portion of Trump’s most fervent supporters and it will make his re-election more difficult. ...

Meanwhile, he handed Democrats a major victory. They can rightly say, we worked with Trump on the border wall, while we decreased enforcement funding and passed an amnesty for the base....

If anyone wants to overturn the amnesty program it created, it will have to be Congress. Good luck with that....

... That ‘amnesty’ claim is based on section 224 of the budget — which appears, on first glance, to block the deportation of many people who are illegally in the U.S.

That’s because it states that no funds may be used to detain or deport any “sponsor” or “potential sponsor” of an “unaccompanied alien child.” It adds that even any “member of a household” of a “potential sponsor” is now immune from deportation.

But a DHS official told Fox News that terms like “potential sponsor” have precise meanings in Department of Homeland Security regulations — meanings that severely limit the number of people the budget keeps safe from deportation.

For example, to be a “potential sponsor” according to the DHS regulations, one must file significant paperwork — such as showing ID (U.S. or foreign) and proof of residency. The adult applying must also submit documents about the child.

Further, because the bill only applies to kids who are unaccompanied, it does not provide protection for those bringing kids into the US.

That would significantly limit the number of people to whom the no-deportation provision applies.

The section was added to ensure that people coming to pick up kids in custody did not find themselves deported for showing up to pick up the kid.

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The provision in the budget will be replaced by whatever the next budget says.

Another major alleged “poison pill” that may be misunderstood is a clause requiring the federal government to “confer and seek to reach mutual agreement” with local governments before building any wall.

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But the DHS official told Fox News on background that the exact language in the budget — “confer and seek to reach mutual agreement” — nowhere requires the federal government to actually reach an agreement before building fences.

Rather, it just requires DHS to consult with local governments – something DHS already generally does, the official noted.

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Other criticisms of the budget Trump signed include that it allows the Department of Homeland Security to more than double the number of guest worker visas, from 65,000 to 135,000. However, the law merely allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to make such an increase; it would only happen if the secretary authorizes it.

Another matter of contention is that the budget authorizes 45,000 ICE detention beds; an increase from the past budget which paid for 40,520 beds, but less than the number of detention beds ICE actually has.

However, the number of beds authorized by Congress does not actually force ICE to reduce its number of beds, as they can use money from other parts of the budget.

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