Thread: White House: Report National Guard May Round up Immigrants Is False

White House: Report National Guard May Round up Immigrants Is False

Feb. 17, 2017, at 10:23 a.m.



Michael Nelson, a coal miner worker shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump as he prepares to sign Resolution 38, which nullfies the "stream protection rule", at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 16, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria - REUTERS



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Friday denied it was considering mobilizing as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up non-citizens who are in the country illegally.

The Associated Press, citing a draft memo it obtained, reported earlier on Friday that the Trump administration was considering utilizing the military reserve branch in 11 states to target people who are in the United States illegally.

It was not immediately clear who authored the memo AP cited.

http://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/...-immigrants-ap

It was not immediately clear who authored the memo AP cited.

More inside leaks perhaps? They need to investigate thoroughly the entire swamp of employees in the White House.

Trump weighs mobilizing Nat Guard for immigration roundups


GARANCE BURKE
Associated Press February 17, 2017
Comment


The Trump administration is considering a proposal to mobilize as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants, including millions living nowhere near the Mexico border, according to a draft memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The 11-page document calls for the unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement as far north as Portland, Oregon, and as far east as New Orleans, Louisiana.

Four states that border on Mexico are included in the proposal — California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas — but it also encompasses seven states contiguous to those four — Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the AP report was "100 percent not true" and "irresponsible." ''There is no effort at all to utilize the National Guard to round up unauthorized immigrants," he said.

Governors in the 11 states would have a choice whether to have their guard troops participate, according to the memo, written by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general.

While National Guard personnel have been used to assist with immigration-related missions on the U.S.-Mexico border before, they have never been used as broadly or as far north.

The memo is addressed to the then-acting heads of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It would serve as guidance to implement the wide-ranging executive order on immigration and border security that President Donald Trump signed Jan. 25. Such memos are routinely issued to supplement executive orders.

Also dated Jan. 25, the draft memo says participating troops would be authorized "to perform the functions of an immigration officer in relation to the investigation, apprehension and detention of aliens in the United States." It describes how the troops would be activated under a revived state-federal partnership program, and states that personnel would be authorized to conduct searches and identify and arrest any unauthorized immigrants.

Requests to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security for comment and a status report on the proposal were not answered.

The draft document has circulated among DHS staff over the last two weeks. As recently as Friday, staffers in several different offices reported discussions were underway.

If implemented, the impact could be significant. Nearly one-half of the 11.1 million people residing in the U.S. without authorization live in the 11 states, according to Pew Research Center estimates based on 2014 Census data.

Use of National Guard troops would greatly increase the number of immigrants targeted in one of Trump's executive orders last month, which expanded the definition of who could be considered a criminal and therefore a potential target for deportation. That order also allows immigration agents to prioritize removing anyone who has "committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense."

Under current rules, even if the proposal is implemented, there would not be immediate mass deportations. Those with existing deportation orders could be sent back to their countries of origin without additional court proceedings. But deportation orders generally would be needed for most other unauthorized immigrants.

The troops would not be nationalized, remaining under state control.

Spokespeople for the governors of Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Oregon and New Mexico said they were unaware of the proposal, and either declined to comment or said it was premature to discuss whether they would participate.

The other three states did not immediately respond to the AP.

The proposal would extend the federal-local partnership program that President Barack Obama's administration began scaling back in 2012 to address complaints that it promoted racial profiling.

The 287(g) program, which Trump included in his immigration executive order, gives local police, sheriff's deputies and state troopers the authority to assist in the detection of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally as a regular part of their law enforcement duties on the streets and in jails.

The draft memo also mentions other items included in Trump's executive order, including the hiring of an additional 5,000 border agents, which needs financing from Congress, and his campaign promise to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

The signed order contained no mention of the possible use of state National Guard troops.

According to the draft memo, the militarization effort would be proactive, specifically empowering Guard troops to solely carry out immigration enforcement, not as an add-on the way local law enforcement is used in the program.

Allowing Guard troops to operate inside non-border states also would go far beyond past deployments.

In addition to responding to natural or man-made disasters or for military protection of the population or critical infrastructure, state Guard forces have been used to assist with immigration-related tasks on the U.S.-Mexico border, including the construction of fences.

In the mid-2000s, President George W. Bush twice deployed Guard troops on the border to focus on non-law enforcement duties to help augment the Border Patrol as it bolstered its ranks. And in 2010, then-Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer announced a border security plan that included Guard reconnaissance, aerial patrolling and military exercises.

In July 2014, then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry ordered 1,000 National Guard troops to the border when the surge of migrant children fleeing violence in Central America overwhelmed U.S. officials responsible for their care. The Guard troops' stated role on the border at the time was to provide extra sets of eyes but not make arrests.

Bush initiated the federal 287(g) program — named for a section of a 1996 immigration law — to allow specially trained local law enforcement officials to participate in immigration enforcement on the streets and check whether people held in local jails were in the country illegally. ICE trained and certified roughly 1,600 officers to carry out those checks from 2006 to 2015.

The memo describes the program as a "highly successful force multiplier" that identified more than 402,000 "removable aliens."

But federal watchdogs were critical of how DHS ran the program, saying it was poorly supervised and provided insufficient training to officers, including on civil rights law. Obama phased out all the arrest power agreements in 2013 to instead focus on deporting recent border crossers and immigrants in the country illegally who posed a safety or national security threat.

Trump's immigration strategy emerges as detentions at the nation's southern border are down significantly from levels seen in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Last year, the arrest tally was the fifth-lowest since 1972. Deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally also increased under the Obama administration, though Republicans criticized Obama for setting prosecution guidelines that spared some groups from the threat of deportation, including those brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

Last week, ICE officers arrested more than 680 people around the country in what Kelly said were routine, targeted operations; advocates called the actions stepped-up enforcement under Trump.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-wei...151900309.html

That's too bad. Even a serious consideration of such a possibility would help to set the pace.

Put them on the border with orders to turn ALL apprehended right back around. They came through Mexico and they can go right back to Mexico.

LOL!! Turns out it's true!!!!

Trump Team Denies Report On National Guard, Then Admits It Was Based On A Real Document

MEDIA 02/17/2017 03:29 pm ET | Updated 2 minutes ago

The leak was real, but the reporting on it was “false,” according to the administration.
By Michael Calderone
X

President Donald Trump’s administration labeled The Associated Press’s reporting on a leak “100 percent false” on Friday morning, only to acknowledge less than an hour later that the story was based on a real document.

The administration’s response mimicked Trump’s remark a day earlier that even if leaks coming out of the government are “real,” the news is “fake.” And it also fit into what appears to be a pattern of ignoring reporters’ requests for comment, only to push back quickly after stories are published.

At 10:12 a.m., The AP tweeted that the administration was considering using as many as 100,000 National Guard troops “to round up” undocumented immigrants. The news organization soon published a full story, attributing the details of the possible plan to a 11-page draft memo it had obtained.

The White House and Department of Homeland Security failed to respond to the AP’s requests for comment prior to publication, the news organization noted. But immediately after the AP published its explosive story, the White House and DHS denied it.

“Not true,” Michael Short, a senior assistant to White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, tweeted at 10:26 a.m. A DHS spokeswoman said it was “not true” 10 minutes later.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters aboard Air Force One that the AP report was “100 percent not true,” according to a pool report distributed to reporters at 10:40 a.m.

“I wish you guys had asked before you tweeted,” Spicer told reporters.

An AP reporter responded that the news organization had sought comment “multiple times before publication,” according to the pool report.

At 10:43 a.m., Spicer himself tweeted that the AP story was “not true” and that “DHS confirms it is 100% false.” He responded similarly to another reporter asking about it two minutes later.

A Cox Media Group producer tweeted at 11:03 a.m. that a DHS official said the memo cited by the AP was “a very early” draft and “was never seriously considered.”

The White House and DHS could’ve clarified that the draft wasn’t being seriously considered by the administration prior to publication, as journalists noted on Twitter.

The administration’s failure to respond left people to speculate about its motives.

Arizona State journalism professor Dan Gilmor also questioned the administration’s complete denial of the contents of the document, since the document does exist.

Journalists have complained recently that the Trump administration, which frequently decries “fake news,” often fails to respond to requests for comment that would allow reporters to include the administration’s perspective or denials in the original story.

When Trump claimed at Thursday’s press conference that journalists don’t call before publishing stories, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman responded that she doesn’t get her “emails returned from Spicer or [deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee] Sanders, but I reach out.”

Her Times colleague, Glenn Thrush, echoed that sentiment in response to Trump’s claims.

“We call and email the White House all the time,” he tweeted. “They often don’t answer.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated that Spicer spoke to reporters aboard Marine One. He was aboard Air Force One.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b045cd34c15611

YIPPEE!! YIPPEE!!

This is OUR PRESIDENT!!

Now that some traitor leaked it before the plan was official and final, lets go for it! Lets do it! We need all hands on deck to inform the President that we want National Guard Troops utilized in every possible way on illegal immigration deportations. No, we do not want National Guard troops messing with citizens, but we have wanted National Guard involved in stopping illegal immigration including the removal of illegal aliens to every extent possible that the states involved would agree to both on the border and wherever illegal aliens exist in the United States and National Guard would benefit the removal effort.

Get the phones, emails and faxes running. We want this!

WE WANT THIS!! WE WANT THIS!! WE WANT THIS!!

Also, find the leaker, fire this ass and prosecute them for leaking confidential government information that impacts our national security, which of course this does.

Washington Governor Says He Wouldn't Order National Guard To Round Up Unauthorized Immigrants

by Kristian Foden-Vencil Follow OPB | Feb. 17, 2017 1:30 p.m. | Portland

---

The Associated Press has obtained a draft memo from the Trump administration, proposing the mobilization of as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants.

RELATED COVERAGE


Trump Weighs Mobilizing National Guard For Immigration Roundups

A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said it was an early draft from last month, which had not been seriously considered.

Gov. Kate Brown’s office said it never saw the draft and will continue to fight to keep the state an inclusive place for all Oregonians, regardless of heritage, religion or immigration status.

A spokesman for the Oregon National Guard says they’re aware of media reports but have received no official notification to execute any activation at this time.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has said that if such an order were issued, he wouldn’t order his state’s National Guard to round up immigrants.

A White House press secretary tweeted a link to the AP story saying: “Not true.”

Earlier this month President Trump tweeted,”The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise. Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!”

http://www.opb.org/news/article/wash...ed-immigrants/

Abbott: TX Never Asked To Use Nat Guard For Immigration


By Bill O'Neil
|
Feb 17, 3:19 PM








No one has asked them to call out the National Guard.
That’s the response from Governor Greg Abbott’s office to an Associated Press story suggesting a memo was created by the White House calling for the use of up to 100,000 National Guard troops to round up illegal immigrants.
In a statement, the Governor’s Office said it “has not received, much less seen, a memo or request from the White House or Department of Homeland Security regarding the use of Texas National Guard troops for immigration enforcement.”
Texas, along with California , Arizona, and New Mexico were among eleven states included in a plan the Department of Homeland Security said was never seriously considered.

http://www.ktsa.com/abbott-tx-never-...d-immigration/

I imagine there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of drafts floating around the White House with various peoples ideas and thoughts. While we would probably favor some of those drafts, I also suspect we would hate some of them too.