Donald Trump has kept up his hard-line rhetoric even as he gives contradictory directives to his allies President Donald Trump on Sunday explicitly advocated depriving undocumented immigrants of their due-process rights, arguing that people who cross the border into the United States illegally were invaders and must immediately be deported without trial or an appearance before a judge.Trump's attack on the judicial system sowed more confusion as lawmakers struggle to reach consensus on immigration legislation and as federal agencies scramble to reunite thousands of migrant children and their parents who had been separated at the border under an administration policy that the president abruptly reversed last week. The House is preparing to vote this week on a broad, GOP immigration bill, but although the White House supports the legislation its prospects for passage appeared dim Sunday, both because Democrats oppose the measure and because Republicans have long been divided over how restrictive immigration laws should be.Meanwhile, some GOP lawmakers were preparing over the weekend a more narrow bill that would solely address one of the flaws in Trump's executive order, which mandates that migrant children and parents not be separated during their detention. The 1997 "Flores settlement" requires that children be released after 20 days, but the GOP proposal would allow for children and their parents to stay together in detention facilities past 20 days.At the center of the negotiations is a president who has kept up his hard-line rhetoric even as he gives contradictory directives to Republican allies. In a pair of tweets sent late Sunday morning during his drive from the White House to his Virginia golf course, Trump described immigrants as invaders, called U.S. immigration laws "a mockery" and wrote that they must be changed to take away legal rights from undocumented migrants. "We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country, " Trump wrote. "When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order. Most children come without parents. "The president continued in a second tweet, "Our Immigration policy, laughed at all over the world, is very unfair to all of those people who have gone through the system legally and are waiting on line for years! Immigration must be based on merit - we need people who will help to Make America Great Again! "Trump also exhorted congressional Democrats to "fix the laws," arguing that "we need strength and security at the Border! Cannot accept all of the people trying to break into our Country. "After House Republicans failed to pass a hard-line immigration bill last week, they were preparing to vote on another broad bill this week that would provide $25 billion for Trump's long-sought border wall, limit legal immigration and give young undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. "I did talk to the White House yesterday. They say the president is still 100 percent behind us," Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, a co-sponsor of the bill, said on "Fox News Sunday. "But because that bill may not garner enough votes to pass the House, momentum was building over the weekend for a more narrow measure that would effectively end the Flores settlement. Should the broader bill fail, the White House is preparing to throw its support behind the measure, which is expected to garner wider support among lawmakers, according to a White House official.Legislative negotiations are continuing behind the scenes despite Trump's vacillations over the last week. The president began the week defending his administration's family separation policy. On Tuesday night, he expressed support for two rival GOP bills in a muddled and meandering address to House Republicans in which he insulted Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., without prompting, drawing a smattering of boos. Then on Friday, he urged lawmakers to throw in the towel, tweeting, "Republicans should stop wasting their time on Immigration until after we elect more Senators and Congressmen/women in November. "That tweet demoralized Republicans as they headed home for the weekend, but did not end talks about what the House might pass. Brendan Buck, counselor to House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Sunday that a solution specifically dealing with family separation had been "a topic of discussion all week," though he noted that there was not one policy or bill that Republicans had coalesced behind.Marc Short, the White House director of legislative affairs, said Sunday that it was premature to announce which measures Trump would sign but urged Congress to act quickly to address the immigration issue broadly. "The White House has consistently raised our concern about the Flores settlement with Congress," Short said. "It's, in fact, an issue that previous administrations grappled with also, and we anticipate Congress acting on that sooner rather than later. "Meanwhile, Trump's attack on the due-process rights of immigrants follows a week in which he has been fixated on the immigration court system, which he has called "ridiculous." The president has balked at proposals from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and other lawmakers to add court personnel to help process more immigration cases.Democrats and immigrant rights advocates sought to shame Trump for saying he wants to deny illegal immigrants their due-process rights. "America rules by law," tweeted Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., "not by presidential diktat. "Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project, said in a statement:"What President Trump has suggested here is both illegal and unconstitutional. Any official who has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws should disavow it unequivocally. "And at least one Republican lawmaker spoke out against Trump's threat. Rep. Justin Amash, Mich., a libertarian-leaning Republican who has often criticized the president, responded to the controversy by quoting the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. "No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," Amash tweeted.Trump has been beating this drum for several days now. In a speech last Tuesday, Trump said, "I don't want judges. I want border security. I don't want to try people. I don't want people coming in. ""Do you know, if a person comes in and puts one foot on our ground, it's essentially, 'Welcome to America, welcome to our country'?" Trump continued. "You never get them out, because they take their name, they bring the name down, they file it, then they let the person go. They say, 'Show back up to court in one year from now.' "Trump suggested in those remarks, delivered before the National Federation of Independent Businesses, that many immigrants were "cheating" because they were following instructions from their attorneys. "They have professional lawyers," he said. "Some are for good, others are do-gooders, and others are bad people. And they tell these people exactly what to say. "Many immigration hard-liners see it differently. Asylum applications and deportation proceedings go before immigration courts, staffed by judges who can make rulings without consulting juries.Cruz's initial legislation on the border crisis proposed doubling the amount of immigration judges, from roughly 375 to 750. And Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken steps to strengthen the immigration courts, allowing them to process many cases without trials and limiting their ability to delay other cases. "I have sent 35 prosecutors to the Southwest and moved 18 immigration judges to the border," Sessions told an audience in San Diego earlier this year. "That will be about a 50 percent increase in the number of immigration judges who will be handling the asylum claims. "While wrestling with their own response, Republicans have shifted blame to Democrats, who have been critical of both Sessions's moves and drafts of immigration legislation. In a Sunday afternoon tweet, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, N.Y., argued for "a czar to break through the bureaucracy and get these kids out of limbo and back in their parents' arms. "On the Sunday political talk shows, Republicans echoed Trump in accusing Democrats of rejecting any serious solution in favor of inflicting political hurt - and charging that they want "open borders.<doc-sep>President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday morning that the U.S. “Cannot accept all of the people trying to break into our Country” and called for migrants to be "immediately" deported without a trial. “When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came,” he said. His tweet did not mention people coming to the U.S. to seek asylum, which is legal to do. "Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order," he said, adding in another tweet that legal entry to the country should be based on “merit.” Immigration advocates pushed back on the comments. “What President Trump has suggested here is both illegal and unconstitutional. Any official who has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws should disavow it unequivocally,” said Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. Late Saturday night, the Trump administration released a “fact sheet” noting more than 2,000 children have yet to be reunited with their parents and revealing some details about the reunification process. The departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Health and Human Services (HHS) said that as of June 20, 2,053 separated children remained in HHS custody, waiting to be reunited with their families as a result of the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy seeking to criminally prosecute all adults crossing the border illegally, leading to family separations. The statement comes three days after Trump ended his policy that led to family separations, allowing families to be held together in detention centers, after an outpouring of protests. The fact sheet released Saturday stated that the government had a “well coordinated” process of reuniting families “for the purposes of removal” — in contrast to criticism from attorneys and activists that the executive order ending family separations was creating confusion among agencies and the courts. The statement added that children are given the opportunity to communicate with a “vetted” parent or relative within 24 hours of arriving at an HHS-funded facility, but advocates and an organization providing foster care for separated children have told NBC News it can take weeks for parents to be tracked down and able to communicate with their children by phone. The fact sheet did not say how long the reunification process would take or whether families would be reunited while the parents' immigration proceedings were ongoing or only once they were subject for deportation. It also did not state if the process is different for families going through the asylum process. Separately, Customs and Border Protection has reunited 522 children who were separated from their families as part of the "zero tolerance" policy. The statement said a “small number of children” that were separated for reasons other than zero tolerance will remain separated, listing general reasons for that being if the familial relationship cannot be confirmed, if the adult is believed to be a threat to the child or if the adult is a “criminal.” Migrants are first detained in CBP custody when they are apprehended at the border. The separated families were then split into different agencies, with adults sent to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the children sent to HHS custody. The Port Isabel Service Processing Center in Texas is serving as the primary family reunification and removal center for adults in ICE custody, according to the fact sheet. Meanwhile, another wave of protests against Trump’s immigration policies was planned in several cities nationwide on Sunday, following rallies from San Diego to New York that drew thousands on Saturday.<doc-sep>We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order. Most children come without parents...<doc-sep>
President Donald Trump said on Twitter Sunday that immigrants entering the country illegally should be removed from the country “immediately” without being granted a court hearing. “We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came,” Trump said in a series of two tweets Sunday morning. “Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order. Most children come without parents….Our Immigration policy, laughed at all over the world, is very unfair to all of those people who have gone through the system legally and are waiting on line for years!” “Immigration must be based on merit – we need people who will help to Make America Great Again,” he concluded. Under current Trump administration policy, all all undocumented immigrants caught entering the country are referred for criminal prosecution as part of a tightened “zero-tolerance” policy announced in May by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. That “zero-tolerance” policy spiked an onslaught of family separations, since parents who were caught crossing the border illegally were detained under the Department of Homeland Security while their children were placed under the auspices of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. More than 2,300 children were separated from the adults they crossed the border with, provoking outrage around the world and producing a public relations nightmare for the administration. As anger over the policy reached its peak, Trump signed an Executive Order on June 20 to enable these families to stay together. In a fact sheet released Saturday evening, the Department of Homeland Security said 522 children who had been separated from their families were since reunited, but provided no timeline for when the rest of the reunions would happen. Write to Alana Abramson at Alana.Abramson@time.com.