Sweeping immigration crackdown looks to be top of Trump’s agenda
Donald Trump won the presidency campaigning on a promise of a far-reaching immigration crackdown, and early indications are that he intends to execute it.
We’re looking very strongly at immigration ... We’re going to look at the borders
The immigration section of Trump’s presidential transition website reaffirms his plans to “cancel unconstitutional executive orders” – which his advisers have said includes President Barack Obama’s 2012 programme that has protected from deportation 750,000 young people brought to the US illegally.
Once he takes office in January, Trump can end that programme without any approval from Congress. He can also end Obama’s 2014 executive action, currently blocked by the courts, to extend that deportation reprieve to some 4 million undocumented immigrants who haven’t committed crimes.
The website re-emphasized other Trump proposals for which he may need congressional approval, including plans to build a wall on the US-Mexico border, suspend new visas from certain high-risk countries, end funding for sanctuary cities and change legal immigration policies to better serve US workers.
The president-elect listed immigration as one of his top three priorities on Thursday.
“We’re looking very strongly at immigration,” he told reporters in the Capitol after meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “We’re going to look at the borders, very importantly, we’re looking very strongly at health care and we’re looking at jobs — big league jobs.”
Trump tapped Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, an anti-immigration firebrand who helped draft controversial restrictionist laws in Arizona and Alabama, to his transition team.
