During Mexico Border Visit, Attorney General Sessions Outlines 'Get Tough' Immigration Plan Astrid Galvan - The Associated Press
go to original April 11, 2017

Jeff Sessions Speech on Border Security in Arizona (Live Satellite News)

Update: Jeff Sessions Planned to Call Immigrants ‘Filth’ at US-Mexico Border (Carbonated.TV)

Attorney General Jeff Sessions toured the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday and unveiled what he described as a new get-tough approach to immigration prosecutions under President Donald Trump.

The nation's top law enforcement official outlined a series of changes that he said mark the start of a new era to rid American cities and the border of what he described as "filth" brought on by drug cartels and criminal organizations.

He credited Trump for a steep drop-off of border apprehensions this year and said the administration will bring more felony prosecutions against immigrants entering the country illegally.

"This is a new era. This is the Trump era," he said. "The lawlessness, the abdication of the duty to enforce our immigration laws, and the catch and release practices of old are over."

Sessions has been expanding the Justice Department's role in the anti-immigration agenda of the Trump administration. But his Tuesday speech during his first visit to the border offered the most comprehensive look yet at his plans for federal prosecutions of those in the country illegally. He directed the nation's federal prosecutors in a Tuesday memo to prioritize immigration-related cases, with an eye toward targeting people who cross the border illegally and those who come back after being deported.

Sessions urged federal prosecutors to intensify their focus on immigration crimes such as illegal crossing or smuggling others into the U.S., even though such prosecutions are already happening on a large scale. Half of federal arrests in 2014 were for immigration-related offenses, according to a Pew Research analysis released this week, based on the most recent federal statistics.

Critics blasted the initiatives announced by Sessions as fear-mongering and anti-immigrant rhetoric not rooted in facts.

Read the rest at Syracuse.com

Related: Prosecutor: Jeff Sessions’s New Immigration Plan Is ‘F*cking Horrifying’ (The Daily Beast)

Related: Sessions Orders Crackdown on Immigrant Smugglers, Repeated Entry (Bloomberg)

Related: Has Jeff Sessions Ushered in a New Kind of Federalism? (The Huffington Post)

Related: Donald Trump Changes Yardstick in Claim About Southern Border Apprehensions (PolitiFact)

Related: Report: Homeland Security Fields 1,000 Sex Abuse Complaints (Associated Press)

Related: Trump’s Border Wall May Come Crashing Down Before Construction Even Begins (Sputnik)

Related: Robert Reich: Trump’s 13 Broken Promises (So Far) (RobertReich.org)

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