Trump pitches 'border security, DACA, TPS, and many other things' in shutdown deal proposal
President Trump began his address on border security and the partial government shutdown Saturday with a grim description of the "humanitarian and security crisis on our southern border." He highlighted the dangers of migrants' journeys to the United States, especially sexual assault, and argued stricter border control would reduce crime and drug trafficking.
"As I candidate for president, I promised I would fix this crisis, and I intend to keep that promise one way or the other," Trump said. "I am here today to break the logjam and provide Congress with a path forward to end the government shutdown and solve the crisis on the southern border."
That path, as Trump explained it, includes "$800 million in urgent humanitarian assistance, $805 million for drug detection technology to help secure our ports of entry, an additional 2,750 border agents and law enforcement professionals, [and] 75 new immigration judge teams to reduce the backlog of — believe it or not — almost 900,000 cases."
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The proposal retains Trump's longstanding demand of $5.7 billion for construction of "powerful and fully designed, see-through steel barrier[s]" in "high-priority locations." It offers "three years of legislative relief for 700,000 [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)] recipients brought here unlawfully by their parents at a young age," as well as a "three-year extension of temporary protected status (TPS)" for "300,000 immigrants whose protective status is facing expiration" while further immigration reform is negotiated.
Trump also listed two "measures to protect migrant children from exploitation and abuse," a "new system to allow Central American minors to apply for asylum in their home countries and reform to promote family reunification for unaccompanied children" detained away from their families in the United States.
"That is our plan: border security, DACA, TPS, and many other things," Trump concluded. "This plan solves the immediate crisis ... and immediately re-opens our federal government." Watch the full live stream below. Bonnie Kristian
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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