Chilling news from Donald Trump’s immigration advisor, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach: In an interview with Reuters, he says the Trump administration may move forward with an extremely costly border wall and may not seek congressional approval. In addition, they are considering a registry for Muslims:
An architect of anti-immigration efforts who says he is advising President-elect Donald Trump said the new administration could push ahead rapidly on construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall without seeking immediate congressional approval.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped write tough immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere, said in an interview that Trump's policy advisers had also discussed drafting a proposal for his consideration to reinstate a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries.
Not that Republicans care, but immigrants from many Muslim countries go through an intensive screening process that takes 18 to 24 months to pass.
And building a border wall without congressional approval? Donald Trump’s own estimates are that the wall would cost between $8 and $12 BILLION:
Trump has said the wall could cost $8 billion to $12 billion, be made of precast concrete, and rise 35 to 40 feet, or 50 feet, or higher. He’s said the wall doesn’t need to run the nearly 2,000 miles of the border, but half of that because of natural barriers.
How in the world do you get at least $8 billion in funding without going through Congress and the American people? Mexico sure as hell isn’t going to pay for that wall. Kobach seemed to indicate they’d play a little shell game with that money, taking it from somewhere else:
Kobach said the immigration advisers were also looking at how the Homeland Security Department could move rapidly on border wall construction without approval from Congress by reappropriating existing funds in the current budget. He acknowledged "that future fiscal years will require additional appropriations."
Kobach also told Reuters Trump and his henchmen are looking for a way to revoke President Obama’s DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and remove the work permits of 700,000 hardworking people who grew up in the United States:
Kobach said the immigration group had also discussed ways of overturning President Barack Obama's 2012 executive action that has granted temporary deportation relief and work permits to more than 700,000 undocumented people or "dreamers" who came to the United States as children of illegal immigrants.
For people who say “Give Trump a chance”, every indication thus far is they are working to tear us apart, not bring us together. The “Dreamers” Kobach is talking about deporting are teachers, doctors, lawyers, reporters, and college students. They are all around us, and they are some of the best and brightest minds in the country. Many of them arrived as babies and have never known anything else.
And while Reuters describes Kobach’s efforts as “tough immigration laws,” the truth is they are downright racist. Arizona’s S.B. 1070 allowed police to stop, question, and even jail people who could not produce citizenship paperwork on the spot. You can read more about Kris Kobach and the most racist law in modern American history here.