President Donald Trump and top administration officials have been discussing ways to reduce illegal immigration in the United States — and they’ve reportedly come up with a clever plan.
Rather than go after just illegal border crossings, the White House is going to increase pressure on countries with high numbers of citizens who overstay short-term visas.
It’s part of Trump’s growing focus on illegal immigration heading into his re-election campaign.
The administration could introduce new travel restrictions on nationals from those countries, among other crackdowns.
The idea, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is just one of many under discussion by an administration that is increasingly urgent to satisfy 2016 election promises.
The ideas have ranged from the extreme — including Trump’s threat to shut down the southern border and consideration of again separating children from parents — to more subtle tweaks to the legal immigration system, including efforts to clamp down on visa overstays, which, according to the nonpartisan Center for Migration Studies, exceed illegal border crossings.
Plans are also in the works to have border patrol agents conduct initial interviews to determine whether illegal migrants seeking asylum have a “credible fear” of returning to their homelands.
Border patrol agents are the first officials who come into contact with migrants, and the thinking is that they’ll be tougher than asylum officers. And officials have been considering raising asylum standards and changing the court system so that the last people in are the first to have their cases adjudicated. Some of the ideas have been proposed, rejected and then proposed again.
The administration has also been weighing targeting the remittance payments sent home by people living in the country illegally. And White House aide Stephen Miller in particular has been pushing Homeland Security officials to move forward with plans to punish the thousands of illegal immigrants in the country using public benefits, such as food stamps and welfare.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said both are topics of focus for the White House.
“It is a top priority for the administration, as has been for two years, to reduce overstay rates for visas and the visa waiver program — and it’s well known that the administration is working to ensure faithful implementation of immigration welfare rules to protect American taxpayers,” he said.
At the same time, Trump suggested Monday that his threat to bus illegal immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities in an apparent effort to exact revenge on Democratic foes is taking effect.
“Those Illegal Immigrants who can no longer be legally held (Congress must fix the laws and loopholes) will be, subject to Homeland Security, given to Sanctuary Cities and States!” Trump tweeted.
Democrats on Monday demanded that White House and agency officials turn over internal documents on the administration’s deliberations over the sanctuary city plan.
“Not only does the administration lack the legal authority to transfer detainees in this manner, it is shocking that the president and senior administration officials are even considering manipulating release decisions for purely political reasons,” read a letter signed by three House committee chairmen.
Trump, meanwhile, has insisted he has “the absolute legal right to have apprehended illegal immigrants transferred to Sanctuary Cities.”
He continued to rail about the situation at the border during an appearance in Minnesota on Monday and made the case that the issue could be a winning one for Republicans in 2020, telling the crowd that the GOP could “retake the House” over this issue.
Many moderate Republicans urged Trump to avoid harsh immigration talk in the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections, warning that it could hurt the party’s chances, especially in the suburbs.
U.S. officials say a border crisis is happening. Huge numbers of illegal immigrants, largely from Central America, are overwhelming the southwestern border.
The U.S. Border Patrol said the 53,000 families apprehended in March set a record, though Democrats say the administration is worsening the problem by aggressively detaining people caught entering illegally and limiting the number of applicants for refugee status who are processed.
The Associated Press contributed to this article