Politics

Trump claims Dems want to ‘let MS-13 all over our country’

President Trump slammed “obstructionist” Democrats Saturday for standing in the way of a legislative fix to illegal immigration.

“They think this is a good issue,” he said in a speech to fire up delegates at Nevada’s state GOP convention. “I think I got elected largely because we are strong on the border.

“I like the issue for our election, too,” he continued. “Our issue is strong borders, no crime. Their issue is open borders; let MS-13 all over our country.”

Trump made no mention of his Wednesday about-face on immigration, when he signed an executive order undoing his policy of separating migrant children from their parents amid widespread criticism.

Federal agencies have been struggling to meet his demands for “zero-tolerance” enforcement measures.

“They want to hire 5,000 more judges,” Trump said of Democrats. “I don’t want judges. I want Border Patrol, I want ICE.”

Federal officials launched a “reunification task force” Friday to bring the roughly 2,300 migrant children now in foster homes and detainment centers across the country back to their parents.

The new group is connected to a Department of Health and Human Services office that usually deals with public-health disasters like epidemics and hurricanes – tacit acknowledgment that the job of reuniting the minors with their incarcerated parents is too daunting for the agency’s small Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Since about April, feds say, roughly 27,000 people have been detained while trying to illegally cross the southern U.S. border in a family group.

Many of them were children and teens who ended up in U.S. custody, away from their relatives.

The Trump administration says it now wants to detain families together until they can go before a judge and plead their cases for asylum.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice is seeking to modify a 2015 court order that mandated quick releases of migrant children – which complicates detaining them with their families over potentially long periods.

Further, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has just three family detention centers in operation, two in Texas and one in Pennsylvania.

ICE is on the lookout for 15,000 more beds for family detainees, the agency said Friday.

The centers should look “child-friendly rather than penal in nature,” the agency said, and must provide private showers and educational field trips for kids in custody.
That’s not enough for New York City activists who protested Trump’s policies Saturday.

A dozen Occupy demonstrators camped out in front of the ICE field office on East Houston Street in Manhattan in hopes of preventing agents from transporting detainees.

“We plan on being here until ICE is shut down,” said Marrissa Holmes, 32, of Brooklyn. “As long as it takes.”

Eoaa G., 11, stood nearby waving a sign reading “Honk If You Hate ICE,” racking up several beeps a minute – even from an MTA bus and a city fire truck.

Meanwhile, Rev. Al Sharpton gathered 50 sign-wielding protesters and a cluster of elected officials near the East Harlem foster care provider where authorities have sent some 350 migrant kids.

“If they take our children, they take our democracy,” said city Comptroller Scott Stringer. “This is a permanent stain on America. This will never be washed away. ”