Trump orders construction on border wall; pulls grants from Sanctuary Cities; restores 287g and Secure Communities. But...

In a test of whether the lunkhead, Breitbart News way of opposing illegal immigration will work, Donald Trump signed two executive orders today dealing with illegal immigration.

The first [1] orders the "immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border". It would also "expedite determinations of apprehended individuals' claims of eligibility to remain in the United States" and promptly deport those rejected.

For those expecting an actual wall, the executive order has a big loophole:

"Wall" shall mean a contiguous, physical wall or other similarly secure, contiguous, and impassable physical barrier.

In other words, a fence can meet those requirements; Trump simply has a different definition of "wall" than everyone else.

Trump seems to want to get the money for the Wall from Congress, leaving them in control of whether it gets built:

Identify and, to the extent permitted by law, allocate all sources of Federal funds for the planning, designing, and constructing of a physical wall along the southern border; ...Project and develop long-term funding requirements for the wall, including preparing Congressional budget requests for the current and upcoming fiscal years...

Trump also wants to increase detention facilities near the border, and assign more asylum officers and immigration judges near the border. He also wants to end catch and release, and end the memorandum from the Department of Homeland Security (the "Priority Enforcement Program") that prioritized criminal aliens for removal over other illegal aliens.

And, he'll "hire 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents" and "hire 10,000 additional immigration officers".

He also wants a report listing payments made by the U.S. government to Mexico, presumably as a way of trying to get them to pay for the Wall.

If you're familiar with Arizona's SB1070, this will ring a bell:

It is the policy of the executive branch to empower State and local law enforcement agencies across the country to perform the functions of an immigration officer in the interior of the United States to the maximum extent permitted by law... To the extent permitted by law, and with the consent of State or local officials, as appropriate, the Secretary shall take appropriate action, through agreements under section 287(g) of the INA, or otherwise, to authorize State and local law enforcement officials, as the Secretary determines are qualified and appropriate, to perform the functions of immigration officers in relation to the investigation, apprehension, or detention of aliens in the United States under the direction and the supervision of the Secretary. Such authorization shall be in addition to, rather than in place of, Federal performance of these duties.

See the past coverage of the 287g program at the link. Trump also wants to bring back the Secure Communities program that was considered a 287g Lite.

The part of Arizona's SB1070 that tried to do something similar on a state level was struck down, after it was tied up in the courts by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups. Doing it at the federal level might avoid similar legal challenges, or it might not.

The sanctuary cities policy boils down to this:

In furtherance of this policy, the Attorney General and the Secretary, in their discretion and to the extent consistent with law, shall ensure that jurisdictions that willfully refuse to comply with 8 U.S.C. 1373 (sanctuary jurisdictions) are not eligible to receive Federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes by the Attorney General or the Secretary. The Secretary has the authority to designate, in his discretion and to the extent consistent with law, a jurisdiction as a sanctuary jurisdiction. The Attorney General shall take appropriate enforcement action against any entity that violates 8 U.S.C. 1373, or which has in effect a statute, policy, or practice that prevents or hinders the enforcement of Federal law.

Trump also wants regular government reports on crimes committed by illegal aliens and an "Office for Victims of Crimes Committed by Removable Aliens".

Will all this work? Lunkhead plans work for a while, but tend to fail sooner or later and oftentimes they fail miserably. The problem with Trump's moves is that they won't change any minds. Those who opposed illegal immigration yesterday will keep opposing it, and those who supported it yesterday will keep supporting it.

While those in the Breitbart sphere will welcome these moves, others will vow to fight them. Those who'll fight Trump's plans have a great deal of power and money and, unlike Trump and his supporters, they do things the smart way.

Obviously, they're going to take every opportunity to tie as much of Trump's moves up in court. They're also going to publish and broadcast endless propaganda pieces about sympathetic illegal aliens (e.g., the PIIPP entries). Sanctuary cities tend to be in blue states with Democratic national representatives. So, expect the Dems in Congress to move to fund cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle in other ways. Trump's executive orders will impact the business community, and expect them to put a great deal of pressure on Congress such as through the US Chamber of Commerce.

There's also the strong possibility that Trump is simply trying to perfect the George W Bush and Barack Obama scam of appearing tough on the border in order to get amnesty. Your tip off to that will be if the business community doesn't fight him as much as they otherwise would.

If you force someone to do something, that create resentment and they'll seek every chance they can get to avoid it. If you don't have the upperhand at all times, then they'll be able to avoid doing it. On the other hand, if someone knows doing something is in their best interest, they'll tend to do it readily without constantly trying to avoid doing what you want.

It's not just that Trump and his supporters can only do the first. The deeper problem is that they can't even conceive of doing the second. They think the only way to do things is the lunkhead way and because of that they're ultimately just helping the pro-illegal immigration side.lllll

The smart way to do things would be to make smart, sane, valid, pro-American, big tent arguments against mass/illegal immigration. Those would make supporting or enabling illegal immigration politically toxic for all but those like Luis Gutierrez. The ACLU still might sue, but they'd get very little institutional support for it. After supporting or enabling mass/illegal immigration is as politically toxic as, say, wanting to exploit child labor, then the border can be easily secured with much less effort and there will be fewer holes in the "wall".

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[1] whitehouse . gov/the-press-office/2017/01/25/executive-order-border-security-and-immigration-enforcement-improvements