White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said a pipe bomb explosion in an underground walkway near the Port Authority Bus Terminal shows the need for “immigration reform.”
Sanders said Monday that Congress should work with the president, stressing the need to “protect our borders” and calling for a “merit-based” immigration system.
Authorities say 27-year-old Akayed Ullah, inspired by the Islamic State group, set off a pipe bomb strapped to his body in the passageway on West 42nd Street between 7th and 8th avenues. Ullah is from Bangladesh nad arrived in the United States in February 2011, subsequently obtaineing a Green Card and becoming a permanent U.S. resident.
White House Calls for Immigration Reform After NYC Terror Attack
The White House on Monday called on Congress to overhaul the immigration system, saying an attack in New York City is evidence the U.S. needs to strengthen border security.
“This attack underscores the need for Congress to work with the president on immigration reforms that enhance the national security and public safety,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters. “We must protect our borders and we must ensure that individuals entering our country are not coming to do harm to people, and we must move to a merit-based immigration system.”
Sessions, Nielsen to Discuss Immigration in Baltimore
- S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen will address immigration enforcement and international gangs at a news conference in Baltimore on Tuesday.
Both issues have been central for the Trump administration, which has cracked down on immigrants entering the country illegally.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department has touted the arrest and prosecution of members of the MS-13 gang, the best known of the gangs that originated in the 1980s among Central American immigrants in Los Angeles. Sessions has held similar events across the country this year.
Roy Moore Vows to Aid Trump’s Immigration Crackdown After NYC Terror Attack
Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore weighed in on the terror attack in Manhattan on Monday, vowing to back President Trump’s tough stance against Islamic terrorists if elected.
“As we get news this morning of yet another radical Islamic terrorist attack, I am grateful that it appears no one was critically injured, and, as always, I am thankful for the quick action of law enforcement who have the suspect in custody,” Moore wrote on Twitter, hoping to generate some positive press for himself by seizing on the bombing.
“In the United States Senate I will fight with President Trump for the increased safety of the American people and I will not mince words when it comes to calling out radical Islamic terrorism for the threat that it is.”
Trump’s Deportation Tough Talk Hurts Law-Abiding Immigrants
The overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants in the United States have no criminal record. That poses a quandary for deportation agents who, prodded by the administration to get tough, have intensified the pace at which they round up not just criminal undocumented immigrants, but law-abiding ones as well.
Of roughly 143,000 unauthorized immigrants living in the United States who were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, a 30% increase over the previous year, more than a quarter had no criminal convictions. As for those who had been convicted, most were guilty of non-violent charges including drug, traffic and immigration offenses such as re-entering the country after deportation.
Immigration-Rights Advocates Say Homeland Security Uses Minors as ‘Bait’
Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) and seven other immigrant-rights organizations filed a complaint Dec. 7 with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Office of Inspector General.
The complaint is on behalf of the approximately 400 people arrested this summer in Immigration and Customs Enforcement effort that the groups allege used unaccompanied minors as bait. When parents and other relatives came forward to sponsor children who would otherwise be kept in detention centers, they were arrested and detained.
“How is it in America’s safety interests to keep these boys and girls in government-run shelters while their families are flung into chaos and potential deportation?” CLINIC executive director Jeanne Atkinson asked in a statement announcing the complaint.
Free Speech Rally Organizers Voice Opposition to Sanctuary City Status
The organizers of the controversial Free Speech Rally, which drew a crowd of over 40,000 counter protesters in August, and subsequent Rally for the Republic held a demonstration against sanctuary cities and illegal immigration Saturday morning at the Massachusetts State House.
Matthias Thorpe, an organizer for Resist Marxism, told The Daily Free Press the overarching goal of the group’s work is to protect and encourage free speech.
“The main objective is to try to support the constitution, because the constitution says that we have free speech and its free speech for all,” Thorpe said. “Even though you may not like opinions of those who are speaking, doesn’t mean that you can commit violence towards them and doesn’t mean that you can suppress their speech.”
Louisville Says Trump Administration Overreacting, Rule Doesn’t Make It a “Sanctuary City”
The city’s top attorney said the Trump administration is overreacting to a local ordinance that largely forbids city officials from cooperating with federal agents on immigration stings.
In a Dec. 8 response to the federal government, Jefferson County Attorney Mike O’Connell also said the ordinance does not make Louisville a “sanctuary city” as defined by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a memorandum this year.
It was “perplexing that Louisville is singled out for scrutiny in light of Mr. Session’s directives to the contrary,” O’Connell said.
