Trump's mass deportation continues and looks to get much nastier

Our new President, who was inaugurated four weeks ago today, gave a press conference yesterday that was historic, in that no one seems to know of a Presidential press conference that was so "unhinged," a word commonly used in the immediate reaction to it.

During it, he talked about his anti-immigrant Executive Order, whose implementation has been put on a "stay" by the federal courts (Scorning media, Trump denies reports of chaos during wide-ranging news conference PBS Newshour 02/16/2017):

JUDY WOODRUFF: Mr. Trump also defended his ban on travelers from seven mostly Muslim nations. It’s been blocked in federal court.

Today, the Justice Department announced that the order will be rescinded. The president said that a new one is coming, and he addressed the fate of immigrant children shielded from deportation under the so-called DACA program.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Let me tell you about the travel ban. We had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban. But we had a bad court. Got a bad decision. We had a court that’s been overturned. Again, may be wrong, but I think it’s 80 percent of the time, a lot.

We had a bad decision. We’re going to keep going with that decision. We’re going to put in a new executive order next week some time. But we had a bad decision.

Now, what I wanted to do was do the exact same executive order, but said one thing. I said this to my people. Give them a one-month period of time. But General Kelly, now Secretary Kelly, said, if you do that, all these people will come in a month, the bad ones.

You do agree there are bad people out there, right, that not everybody that’s like you. You have some bad people out there.

So, Kelly said you can’t do that. And he was right. As soon as he said it I said, wow, never thought of it. I said how about one week? He said, no good. You got to do it immediately, because, if you do it immediately, they don’t have time to come in.

Now, nobody ever reports that. But that’s why we did it quickly.

LISA DESJARDINS: Can you give us more details on the executive order you plan for next week? Even its broad outlines?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yes.

LISA DESJARDINS: Will it be focused on specific …

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s a very fair question.

LISA DESJARDINS: ... countries? And, in addition, on the DACA program for immigration.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Right.

LISA DESJARDINS: What is your plan? Do you plan to continue that program or to end it?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We’re going to show great heart. DACA is a very, very difficult subject for me, I will tell you. To me, it’s one of the most difficult subjects I have, because you have these incredible kids, in many cases, not in all cases.

In some of the cases, they’re having DACA, and they’re gang members, and they’re drug dealers, too. But you have some absolutely incredible kids, I would say mostly. And they were brought here in such a way — it’s a very — it’s a very, very tough subject.

We’re going to deal with DACA with heart. I have to deal with a lot of politicians, don’t forget, and I have to convince them that what I’m saying is — is right. And I appreciate your understanding on that.

But the DACA situation is a very, very — it’s a very difficult thing for me, because, you know, I love these kids. I love kids. I have kids and grandkids. And I find it very, very hard doing what the law says exactly to do, and you know, the law is rough.

I’m not talking about new laws. I’m talking the existing law is very rough. It’s very, very rough. As far as the new order, the new order is going to be very much tailored to the — what I consider to be a very bad decision.

But we can tailor the order to that decision and get just about everything, in some ways more. But we’re tailoring it now to the decision, we have some of the best lawyers in the country working on it.

And the new executive order is being tailored to the decision we got down from the court. OK? [my emphasis]

That part on DACA sounds like he was briefed to sound sympathetic to the DACA kids while blaming the Obama Administration for the problem, saying he Trump was only enforcing the law the way he was required to do. Even stated well, that would be a pretty transparently silly argument. But stating such point with nuance doesn't seem to be one of the President's strong points.

The PBS reporters returned to the subject int heir commentary:

HARI SREENIVASAN: Now, one of the things I want to follow up on is something that you were asking the president today. What’s happening, what is the latest with the executive order?

LISA DESJARDINS: Right, such a critical piece of information.

The president, as we played for our audience, said he will have a new order out next week. It seems that this next order is an attempt to almost replicate the past order, but line it up so that it passes some kind of court muster.

And it also seems, reading between the lines — and I have one source indicating that they have not figured out exactly how to do that yet. That’s why it hasn’t been released yet, the White House still designing this executive order.

But pay attention to Mr. Trump’s words today, Hari. He also said that this is extreme vetting, that they had to move up more quickly because of the Ninth Circuit ruling. So this is something they were looking at more long-term that they seem to be incorporating into an executive order next week.

It doesn’t seem like it’s all the way fully baked, but it’s going to be significant when it comes.

The Associated Press is reporting today that John Kelly, Secretary of U.S. Homeland Security, has prepared a memo for ICE that is apparently not yet official policy proposing to nationalize up to 100,000 National Guard troops to participate in mass deportation of Latinos. "The 11-page document calls for the unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement as far north as Portland, Ore., and as far east as New Orleans, La." (Trump considers mobilizing 100,000 National Guard troops for immigration roundups Los Angeles Times 02/17/2017)

We're looking a a major mass deportation in its early stages, if the Republicans get their way. Here's one example from Mississippi that Trump and the Republicans want to see replicated millions of times over: David Kenney, Two arrested in Jackson immigration raid Mississippi News Now 02/15/2017 . It's good to see active popular opposition to these moves. (Thousands take to streets of uptown for national immigrant strike WSOC Charlotte
02/17/2017)