Trump to Order Mexican Border Wall and Curtail Immigration
President Trump on Wednesday will order the construction of a Mexican border wall — the first in a series of actions this week to crack down on immigrants, including slashing the number of refugees who can resettle in the United States and blocking Syrians and others from “terror-prone” nations from entering, at least temporarily.
During an appearance at the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday, Mr. Trump plans to sign an executive order to direct federal funds to be shifted toward the building of a wall on the southern border, a signature promise of his campaign. He has argued that doing so is vital to gaining control over the illegal flow of immigrants into the United States.
“Big day planned on NATIONAL SECURITY tomorrow,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday night.
“Among many other things, we will build the wall!”
“Among many other things, we will build the wall!”
Big day planned on NATIONAL SECURITY tomorrow. Among many other things, we will build the wall!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017
This executive order will be signed on the day that Mexico’s foreign minister, Luis Videgaray, arrives in Washington to prepare for the visit of President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico, who is to meet with Mr. Trump at the end of the month. He will be among the first foreign leaders to meet the new president.
Mr. Trump is also expected to target legal immigrants as early as this week, White House officials said, by halting a decades-old program that grants refuge to the world’s most vulnerable people as he begins the process of drastically curtailing it.
This would effectively bar the entry of people from Muslim countries — including Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Syria — and might prioritize the admission of those who are Christian religious minorities.
The plan is in line with a ban on Muslim immigrants that Mr. Trump proposed during his campaign, arguing that such a step was warranted given concerns about terrorism. He later said he wanted to impose “extreme vetting” of refugees from Syria and other countries where terrorism was rampant, although the Obama administration had already instituted strict screening procedures for Syrian refugees that were designed to weed out anyone who posed a danger.
White House officials described the actions on the condition of anonymity on Tuesday to avoid pre-empting the planned announcement. Mr. Trump is also considering slashing, to 50,000 from 110,000, the number of refugees who could be resettled in the United States this year, they said.
Mr. Trump has said that immigration will be on the agenda when he meets with Mr. Peña Nieto.
The order to build the wall is likely to complicate the visit of Mr. Videgaray, who has a history with Mr. Trump. It was Mr. Videgaray, then Mexico’s finance minister, who orchestrated Mr. Trump’s visit to Mexico before the election, a move seen by many Mexicans as tantamount to treason. He was forced to resign because of the fallout, but his reputation was restored after Mr. Trump’s victory, and he was given the job of foreign minister, in part to capitalize on his relationship with the new American leader.
“We are definitely ready to stand in court and challenge any part of the executive order that flies in the face of our Constitution and our core values,” Ms. Hincapié said.
Source: The New York Times
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