ACTION
Along with authorizing the construction of a physical wall on the US-Mexico border,
“Executive Order: Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements” ends the “catch-and-release” policy, hires 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents, and enacts federal-state partnerships to enforce federal immigration policies.
ANALYSIS
Some Republican legislators say Trump’s order is legal under the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which calls for 700 miles of barrier between the US and Mexico. The wall was never completed under the Secure Fence Act, so the Homeland Security secretary could interpret the act to apply to Trump’s proposed wall more than 10 years later. But even if this act validates Trump’s wall, the president will still need money from Congress. During the campaign, he promised that Mexico would pay for the wall, a statement that Mexico adamantly rejects. But with this order, Trump says the US will pay for the wall with federal funds only to be reimbursed by Mexico at a later date. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell estimates the wall would cost around $15 billion; others put it at $25 billion, a sum does not account for other expenses such as maintenance (which could cost as much as $750 million a year).
In 2006, President Bush officially ended “catch-and-release,” a protocol that allows immigrants caught with an illegal status to be set free while waiting for a hearing with an immigration judge. But the US continues the practice because it doesn’t have the necessary detention centers. Nearly 45,000 parents and children were apprehended near the border during the last three months of 2016, but detention centers only have 3,300 beds for immigrant families. Building them will take time and money. The increase of border patrol agents is also dependent on money from Congress.
