Mass deportation is, sort of, off the table
Jan 13, 2017, 6:01 AM | Updated: 10:36 am
Paul Ryan said at a CNN town hall event that there will be no deportation forces under a Trump administration because Congress won't allow it. (AP)
(AP)
There’s been a lot of talk about mass deportation of undocumented immigrants in the United States.
Not sure why. It might be because of speeches like this:
Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation.
Of course, that’s a statement made by President-elect Donald Trump.
Related: Did Trump select an attorney general, or a chaperone?
Anyway, on Thursday, CNN broadcast a town hall starring House speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican. And an undocumented immigrant named Angelica stepped up to the mic. She told Ryan that came into the country illegally as a child, but is now protected by President Obama’s executive order – one of the very executive orders that Mr. Trump promises to rip up when he takes over.
So Angelica, standing next to her daughter, said to the Speaker of the House if that happens …
“My daughter will lose her mother,” Angelica said. “Do you think that I should be deported, and many families in my situation?”
Ryan said “No.”
No, he said. And yet if the executive order that lets her stay is repealed, the new attorney general could kick her out of the country– along with the 800,000 other immigrants in her situation.
With that in mind, CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Speaker Ryan on the issue.
“Everybody thinks that there is some deportation force that is being assembled,” Ryan said.
“President-elect Trump actually used the term ‘deportation force,'” Tapper noted.
“I know, I know,” Ryan said. “And I’m here to tell you, in Congress, it’s not happening.”
Doesn’t get clearer than that. But Congress can’t stop Trump from ripping up an executive order. So who do we believe?
As far as I can tell, one of three things can happen.
• Trump just decides not to rip up the order, and blasts the media for playing his old sound bites.
• Trump rips up the order, and then just signs an identical one.
• Or Trump rips up the order; Congress passes a law protecting these same undocumented immigrants, and Trump signs that!
But if they’re planning the latter, why didn’t they just pass that law 4.5 years ago when this first came up and save us all this aggravation?
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