RUSH: No surprises here in the Trump administration’s outline of its plan to crackdown on undocumented illegal immigrants. “The Department of Homeland Security [today officially] laid out the Trump administration’s plans for aggressive enforcement of immigration laws, including a potentially massive expansion of the number of people detained and deported.” As I say, there are no surprises here. This is exactly what Trump said he was gonna do during the campaign. There’s gonna be panic galore, but it’s nothing that Trump did not telegraph.
He said he was gonna do it. And, by the way, this has been in the works for a while. But this fills the bill of one of the things that I think is good for him to do, and that is focus on this domestic agenda and get some action on it. Get it moving. He’s gonna have to get the Republicans on Capitol Hill moving on tax reform, on all this immigration stuff. (sigh) And it’s not a surprise to me that they’re not crazy about it. Remember, everybody thought they were gonna lose! Everybody thought Hillary was gonna win.
Everybody was making plans for the Democrats to win, for the Republicans to lose, and even some Republicans had said they’d rather lose than Trump win. They’d rather the party be blown to smithereens and have to rebuild it from scratch instead of dealing with Trump winning. And now that Trump has won, everybody’s plans have turned upside down, and there’s some people that don’t want to deal with it and they’re trying to get rid of him and it’s what this is all about, and I have further detail on that coming up.
But the story here about the administration’s plan to crackdown on undocumented immigrants. For the most part here the secretary of Homeland Security, John Kelly, is telling the Department of Homeland Security to enforce the immigration laws we have on the books. That’s step one, and it’s a big step, because those laws have not been enforced. And when states have tried, Obama sued them, as in Arizona. Now, if the Democrats don’t like our immigration laws, maybe they should try to change them via legislation instead of finding judges who are willing to override them.
That’s the way constitutional republics work as opposed to finding Third World banana republic judges to go out there and try to put up stop signs to a president that they disagree with. “The department released guidance memos signed by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly issued to heads of key agencies, which describe how the government plans to implement two executive orders President Donald Trump signed last month on border security and interior enforcement. The memos, which were obtained and reported on by CNN over the weekend, serve to expand upon the orders, which are unrelated to the … travel ban” that the judge in Seattle shut down.
“The guidance explains how the administration plans to put in place the goals dictated in Trump’s executive orders, including vastly increasing the resources to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, building a wall along the southern border and taking a hard-line position on undocumented immigrants. “Department of Homeland Security DHS Guidance on Immigration Executive Orders Tighten Policies on Credible Fear, Unaccompanied Minors.
“Through the memos, Kelly expands the government’s immigration enforcement by instructing agencies to implement unused parts of existing law and by clarifying standards for certain protections, which add up to having sweeping implications for the processing of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.” Now, I’m gonna tell you something. This is gonna be met — it already has been — with outrage and panic and anger and calls and shrieking from leftists who claim we’re losing our country. (hysterical sobbing) “This is not who we are! These are not our values. It’s horrible, !”
This is just American law being enforced on the books, United States statutory law that — laws, I should more properly say — which have been ignored for years and years. So step one is simply enforcement of existing law. And again the thing, folks, there’s no surprise here. This is exactly what Trump said he was going to do. Nothing new. Nothing shocking. The only reason it’s shocking is because the left can’t believe anybody would actually do it. Now, the Washington Post has an accompanying story with a headline:
“Trump Administration Seeks to Prevent Panic Over New Immigration Enforcement Policies — The Trump administration sought to allay fears in immigrant communities [today] as it publicly released wide-ranging new guidelines that allow federal authorities to take stronger enforcement actions against illegal immigrants, saying the directives,” blah, blah, blah. They go on and fill up blanks in their opening paragraph. You know what’s begun to happen? Have you seen the stories that people here illegally are beginning to self-deport? (interruption)
You haven’t seen those stories? You know the story’s been out there for a while. People have known the law is coming and they’re leaving on their own. That’s called self-deportation. It’s like self-insuring. When you don’t buy insurance, you say you’ll cover whatever damage on your own, it’s self-insurance. Well, people are self-deporting. It works this way. Once you tell people you’re gonna start checking IDs, underage kids tend to empty out of your bar. I mean, if you’re serving adult beverages to a bunch of 18- and 19- and 20-year-olds and one night you say, “Tomorrow, we’re gonna check everybody’s ID,” they’re not showing up.
They self-deport from the bar, fully, if they’re under 21. So if you stop incentivizing illegal behavior, people stop engaging in it. So enforcing the law is disincentivizing people to break it. You know, some of the very learned people on this have said if the United States ever really commenced on an immigration policy of simply enforcing existing law, that that alone would reduce in a significant number the people illegally entering the country or trying to. If they know the law is going to be enforced and if they know they’re going to be sent back if they’re caught, they may not show up in the first place.
And that’s why… You know, Mexico wants to get rid of whoever’s coming here. It’s sad, but Mexico is constantly on the side of people here illegally being able to stay. You would think they’d want ’em back, because we’re told the people coming are the cream of the crop! They are productive; they’re able to work. Why wouldn’t Mexico want ’em? But Mexico doesn’t.
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RUSH: Looky here. Just in from TheHill.com, a new poll. It’s that Harvard-Harris poll from Mark Penn. More results. “Americans Overwhelmingly Oppose Sanctuary Cities — Donald Trump has broad public support in his effort to crack down on sanctuary cities. Eighty percent of voters say local authorities should have to comply with the law by reporting to federal agents the illegal immigrants they come into contact with.”
Eighty percent, Mr. Snerdley. You never see a poll with 80% of the people agreeing on anything. Sanctuary cities.