President Donald Trump pressed his case for cracking down on undocumented immigrants on Sunday, tweeting that "zero tolerance" is fair and gives preference to those who "legally wait their turn."
"We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country," Trump said on Twitter. "When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., visiting a processing center for undocumented immigrants on the Texas border, dismissed the implication that the migrants should be denied due process. A mother with a young child who faced threats from gangs and asks for asylum in the U.S. should not be rejected without a hearing, she said.
"That's not what our country stands for," she said. "We do have a system of laws."
Under zero tolerance, undocumented adult immigrants who did not cross at legal entry points are arrested and separated from their children. Trump's tweets Sunday came hours after federal officials released a plan to reunify migrant children with their parents in a mass detention center in Texas. The Department of Homeland Security said the reunifications may not happen until after a parent's deportation proceedings are complete.
Trump once again railed against U.S. immigration laws, calling them a "mockery" to law and order in his tweetstorm.
"Our Immigration policy, laughed at all over the world, is very unfair to all of those people who have gone through the system legally and are waiting on line for years!" he said. "Immigration must be based on merit - we need people who will help to Make America Great Again!"
'Zero tolerance' foes rally in border towns
Voto Latino and other advocates rallied in the Texas border town of Tornillo to demand the Trump administration fix the humanitarian crisis they say Trump's policies have created. Hundreds of demonstrators, including director-activist Rob Reiner and former Housing and Urban Development secretary Julian Castro, chanted "free the children now" and "people united will never be divided" at the Marcelino Serna Port of Entry. "This is an issue about what is right and what is wrong," Castro said. In nearby McAllen, demonstrators continued a hand-off hunger strike for a second day, joined by actress Evan Rachel Wood of HBO’s "Westworld." Fast participants don’t eat for 24 hours, then “pass” the strike onto someone else. Organizers plan to continue the fast for 24 days to honor the estimated 2,400 kids separated from their parents.
Trump likes immigration as election issue
Trump told Republicans in Nevada he needs a GOP Congress to pursue his agenda on immigration and other items. "I like the issue for election, too: Our issue is strong borders, no crime; their issue is open borders, let MS-13 all over our country," Trump told the state GOP convention in Las Vegas on Saturday night. Democrats, however, say Trump administration practices — including the detention of children in cage-like facilities — are cruel and inhumane and will resonate with voters.
Red Hen takes heat for booting Sanders
Social media were buzzing with fallout Sunday from Sarah Huckabee Sanders' unceremonious eviction from a Virginia restaurant. The Facebook page for the Red Hen in Lexington was awash with commentary, much of it bitterly criticizing owner Stephanie Wilkinson's decision Friday night to boot the White House press secretary from the premises in the rustic community almost 200 miles southwest of Washington. "Showing the true love and tolerance of the Left," Rick Elliott commented. "May you become a center of a physical disease to match your moral rot."
Human rights group demands answers from Trump administration
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights formally demanded details about the Trump administration’s treatment of separated children and the reunification process Sunday. The demand for answers "represents a key first step towards rendering a decision that could lead to stopping the Trump administration’s inhumane and illegal practices,” Efrén C. Olivares of the Texas Civil Rights Project said Sunday. In late May, the Texas Civil Rights Project and other groups filed an emergency request with the Inter-American Commission on behalf of parents systematically separated from their children at the United States-Mexico border. “We asked the commission to immediately require the U.S. government to reunite these families and stop this inhumane and illegal practice. We hope we have moved closer to that happening," Olivares said.
Contributing: Trevor Hughes; David Jackson; Doyle Rice; Daniel Borunda, El Paso Times
