Tag Archives: Immigration

Over 680 arrested in U.S. immigration raids; rights groups alarmed

US Immigration officers detaining illegal immigrants

By Julia Edwards Ainsley and Kristina Cooke

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. immigration officers last week arrested more than 680 people in the country illegally, the homeland security chief said on Monday, in a broad enforcement action that alarmed immigrant rights groups.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said the operations, conducted in at least a dozen states, were routine and consistent with regular operations carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Immigrant rights advocates said the operations, which they describe as raids, were not business as usual, and were more sweeping than operations conducted during the administration of former Democratic President Barack Obama.

Kelly said in a statement that 75 percent of the immigrants arrested have criminal records, ranging from homicide to driving under the influence of alcohol.

He said the operation also targeted people who have violated immigration laws.

Some had ignored final orders of deportation, according to ICE, the agency responsible for immigrant arrests and deportations.

Obama was criticized for being the “deporter in chief” after he deported over 400,000 people in 2012, more than any president in a single year.

In 2014, Obama’s homeland security chief issued a memo directing agents to focus on deporting a narrow slice of immigrants, namely those who had recently entered the country or committed serious felonies. Immigrants who were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, for example, were treated as lower priorities for deportation.

Republican President Donald Trump promised to deport 2 million to 3 million migrants with criminal records on taking office.

At a news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday, Trump said his administration had “really done a great job” in its recent arrests of immigrants.

“We’re actually taking people that are criminals, very, very, hardened criminals in some cases with a tremendous track record of abuse and problems,” Trump said.

ICE said in a statement on Monday that the operations targeted immigrants in the Midwest, Los Angeles, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and San Antonio.

The ICE statistics revealed regional differences in the profiles of the immigrants arrested. Of the 41 people arrested in New York City and surrounding areas, 93 percent had criminal convictions, while 45 percent of the 51 people arrested in the San Antonio, Texas area did.

Among the 190 people arrested in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, were 17 people who had no criminal convictions or a prior order to leave the country, according to ICE.

In a Jan. 25 executive order, Trump broadened an Obama-era priority enforcement system for immigrants subject to removal from the United States.

“Now it seems like anyone could be arrested,” said Shiu-Ming Cheer, senior staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. “The level of fear and anxiety is much higher than I’ve ever seen it.”

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley and Kristina Cooke; Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson; Editing by Peter Cooney and Lisa Shumaker)

Challenge to Trump travel ban moves forward in two courts

Yemen nationals reunited with family in US

By Dan Levine

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The most consequential legal challenge to U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel ban will proceed on two tracks in the next few days, including a U.S. appeals court vote that could reveal some judges who disagree with their colleagues on the bench and support the arguments behind the new president’s most controversial executive order.

In a Seattle federal courtroom, the state of Washington will attempt to probe the president’s motive in drafting his Jan. 27 order, while in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, judges will decide whether to reconsider an appeal in that same case decided last week.

Trump’s directive, which he said was necessary to protect the United States from attacks by Islamist militants, barred people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the country for 90 days. Refugees were banned for 120 days, except those from Syria, who were banned indefinitely.

The ban was backed by around half of Americans, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, but triggered protests across the country and caused chaos at some U.S. and overseas airports.

U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle suspended the order after its legality was challenged by Washington state, eliciting a barrage of angry Twitter messages from Trump against the judge and the court system. That ruling was upheld by a three-judge panel at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco last week, raising questions about Trump’s next step.

At a Seattle court hearing on Monday, Robart said he would move forward with discovery in the case, meaning the request and exchange of information pertinent to the case between the opposing parties.

Meanwhile, an unidentified judge on the 9th Circuit last week requested that the court’s 25 full-time judges vote on whether the temporary restraining order imposed on Trump’s travel ban should be reconsidered by an 11-judge panel, known as en banc review. The 9th Circuit asked both sides to file briefs by Thursday.

Since judges appointed by Democrats hold an 18-7 edge on the 9th Circuit, legal experts say it is unlikely a majority will disagree with the court’s earlier ruling and want it reconsidered.

Arthur Hellman, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law who has studied the 9th Circuit, noted that one of the three judges who issued the original ruling was appointed by George W. Bush.

Even if the en banc vote fails, however, judges on the 9th Circuit who disagree with last week’s ruling will be able to publicly express their disagreement in court filings, which could help create a record bolstering Trump’s position.

Meanwhile, the government has signaled that it is considering issuing a new executive order to replace the original one. In that case, it could tell the 9th Circuit later this week that it does not want en banc review, because the case would be moot.

“You would think Jeff Sessions would do whatever he had to do to get this case ended as soon as possible,” Hellman said, referring to the recently appointed U.S. attorney general.

German agency working to clear backlog of 435,000 asylum cases

rejected asylum seeker returns to middle east

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s migration agency hopes to clear a backlog of 435,000 asylum cases within months, the organization’s new director said in an interview with Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper on Wednesday.

Jutta Cordt, who took over as head of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) this month, told the newspaper her top priorities were to accelerate the processing of asylum applications, deepen integration, and step up deportations of those whose applications were denied.

“We carried over 435,000 cases into the new year and we want to have dealt with those this spring,” the paper quoted Cordt as saying.

She told the paper the agency had received 40 million euros ($42.57 million) in additional funding in 2017 to work on repatriation processing and wanted to start that process sooner.

“If there is virtually no prospect for a migrant to stay here, it makes sense to push for an early repatriation and to encourage that financially,” Cordt told the newspaper.

More than a million migrants from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere have arrived in Germany since the beginning of 2015, prompting concerns about security and integration. Polls show that migration will be a key issue in September’s national election.

The issue of repatriation – and better identification of refugees – has taken on new urgency after a spate of Islamist attacks carried out by failed asylum seekers, including Anis Amri, the 24-year-old Tunisian man who rammed a truck into a Berlin Christmas market in December, killing 12 people.

Amri, who was shot dead in Italy, had lived in Germany under at least 14 different names, police have said.

Cordt told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper in a separate interview that local authorities should be taking fingerprints from migrants to better track their identities and avoid multiple asylum applications.

Migrants are currently fingerprinted by police if they cross the German border without a valid passport, then again in a migrant intake center and for a third time when they file an asylum application.

BAMF has said that it has now biometric data on all migrants, but it is not clear how many multiple applications for asylum benefits have been filed.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Alison Williams)

Challenges to Trump’s immigration orders spread to more U.S. states

Massachusetts attorney with several people who don't like trump's immigration ban

(In this Jan. 31 story, in 11th paragraph corrects to show two Iranian plaintiffs are a man and a woman, not two men)

By Scott Malone and Dan Levine

BOSTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Legal challenges to President Donald Trump’s first moves on immigration spread on Tuesday, with three states suing over his executive order banning travel into the United States by citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries.

Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and Washington state joined the legal battle against the travel ban, which the White House deems necessary to improve national security.

The challenges contend the order violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of religious freedom.

San Francisco became the first U.S. city to sue to challenge a Trump directive to withhold federal money from U.S. cities that have adopted sanctuary policies toward undocumented immigrants, which local officials argue help local police by making those immigrants more willing to report crimes.

The legal maneuvers were the latest acts of defiance against executive orders signed by Trump last week that sparked a wave of protests in major U.S. cities, where thousands of people decried the new president’s actions as discriminatory.

Both policies are in line with campaign promises by Republican businessman-turned-politician Trump, who vowed to build a wall on the Mexican border to stop illegal immigration and to take hard-line steps to prevent terrorist attacks in the United States.

The restrictions on the seven Muslim-majority countries and new limits on refugees have won the support of many Americans, with 49 percent of respondents to a Reuters poll conducted Monday and Tuesday saying they agreed with the order, while 41 percent disagreed.

Massachusetts contended the restrictions run afoul of the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits religious preference.

“At bottom, what this is about is a violation of the Constitution,” Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said of the order halting travel by people with passports from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days. The order also barred resettlement of refugees for 120 days and indefinitely banned Syrian refugees.

“It discriminates against people because of their religion, it discriminates against people because of their country of origin,” Healey said at a Boston press conference, flanked by leaders from the tech, healthcare and education sectors who said that the order could limit their ability to attract and retain highly educated workers.

Massachusetts will be backing a lawsuit filed over the weekend in Boston federal court by two Iranian men who teach at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. A federal judge blocked the government from expelling those men from the country and halted enforcement of the order for seven days, following similar but more limited moves in four other states.

The attorneys general of New York and Virginia also said their states were joining similar lawsuits filed in their respective federal courts challenging the ban.

“As we speak, there are students at our colleges and universities who are unable to return to Virginia,” Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring told reporters. “This is not an action I take lightly, but it is one I take with confidence in our legal analysis.”

On Monday, liberal-leaning Washington state became the first U.S. state to have its attorney general initiate a lawsuit against Trump to challenge the travel ban.

Multiple foreign nationals have also filed lawsuits challenging the ban. They included one filed in Colorado on Tuesday by a Libyan college student and two filed in Chicago, including one on behalf of an Iranian father of three children all living in Illinois.

Protests against Trump’s executive action continued on Tuesday in several cities.

A crowd of several thousand demonstrators gathered at the federal courthouse in Minneapolis, chanting “Hey, hey, ho, ho Muslim ban has got to go!” Dozens of protesters chanted the same slogan at Los Angeles International Airport, and more than 400 demonstrators gathered in downtown Miami to protest both the travel ban and Trump’s crackdown on sanctuary cities.

SANCTUARY CHALLENGE

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed suit over Trump’s order threatening to cut funds to cities with sanctuary policies, a move that could stop the flow of billions of dollars to major U.S. population centers including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

“If allowed to be implemented, this executive order would make our communities less safe. It would make our residents less prosperous, and it would split families apart,” Herrera said.

Sanctuary cities adopt policies that limit cooperation, such as refusing to comply with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer requests. Advocates of the policies say that, beyond helping police with crime reporting, they make undocumented immigrants more willing to serve as witnesses if they do not fear that contact with law enforcement will lead to their deportation.

Both the San Francisco and Massachusetts actions contend that Trump’s orders in question violate the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states that powers not granted to the federal government should fall to the states.

Michael Hethmon, senior counsel with the conservative Immigration Reform Law Institute in Washington, called the San Francisco lawsuit a “silly political gesture,” noting that prior federal court decisions make clear that the U.S. government “can prohibit a policy that essentially impedes legitimate federal programs.”

(Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg, Curtis Skinner, Adam Bettcher, Olga Grigoryants, Zachary Fagenson, Alex Dobuzinskis, Timothy McLaughlin, Ian Simpson and Keith Coffman; Editing by Tom Brown and Cynthia Osterman)

EU extends emergency border controls to tackle migration

italian police officer stopping cars at border

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union envoys agreed on Wednesday to extend emergency border controls inside the bloc’s free-travel zone for another three months to mid-May, as immigration and security continued to dominate the political agenda.

The so-called Schengen zone of open borders collapsed as about 1.5 million refugees and migrants arrived in the bloc in 2015 and 2016, leaving the EU scrambling to ensure security and provide for the people.

Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Norway started imposing the emergency border controls from September, 2015, and got the go-ahead on Wednesday to keep them in place for longer.

Germany is all but certain to seek further extensions beyond that in the build-up to Sept. 24 national elections.

The influx of refugees and migrants has triggered a political crisis and bitter feuds between EU member states, which have not been able to agree on how to share the burden.

This has further strained the EU’s troubled unity, adding to challenges facing the bloc – from the rising power of China and a more assertive Russia, to radical Islam in the Middle East and North Africa and the threat of attacks in Europe, to uncertainty shrouding the trans-Atlantic relationship under the new U.S. President Donald Trump.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Tens of thousands in U.S. cities protest Trump immigration order

Protesters yello slogans in protest of travel ban

By Frank McGurty and Nathan Frandino

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of people rallied in U.S. cities and at airports on Sunday to voice outrage over President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting entry into the country for travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations.

In New York, Washington and Boston, a second wave of demonstrations followed spontaneous rallies that broke out at U.S. airports on Saturday as U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents began enforcing Trump’s directive. The protests spread westward as the day progressed.

The order, which bars admission of Syrian refugees and suspends travel to the United States from Syria, Iraq, Iran and four other countries on national security grounds, has led to the detention or deportation of hundreds of people arriving at U.S. airports.

One of the largest of Sunday’s protests took place at Battery Park in lower Manhattan, within sight of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, long a symbol of welcome to U.S. shores.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York told the crowd that Trump’s order was un-American and ran counter to the country’s core values.

“What we are talking about here is life and death for so many people,” the Senate Democratic leader said. “I will not rest until these horrible orders are repealed.”

The march, estimated to have grown to about 10,000 people, later began heading to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in lower Manhattan.

In Washington, thousands rallied at Lafayette Square across from the White House, chanting: “No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here.”

It was the second straight weekend that Washington was the scene of protests. Last Saturday, hundreds of thousands of women participated in an anti-Trump rally and march, one of dozens staged across the country.

On Sunday, many of the protesters left the White House area and marched along Pennsylvania Avenue, stopping at the Trump International Hotel where they shouted: “Shame, shame, shame.”

A crowd that police estimated at 8,000 people eventually arrived at the steps of the U.S. Capitol, where a line of uniformed officers stood guard.

As the crowd passed the Canadian Embassy en route to the Capitol, protesters chanted: “Hey hey, ho ho, I wish our leader was Trudeau.” It was a reference to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Saturday Twitter message affirming his country’s welcoming policy toward refugees.

Trump defended the executive order in a statement on Sunday, saying the United States would resume issuing visas to all countries once secure policies were put in place over the next 90 days.

“To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting,” Trump said. “This is not about religion – this is about terror and keeping our country safe.”

‘NEVER AGAIN MEANS NEVER’

Aria Grabowski, 30, of Washington, was carrying a sign that read: “Never again means never again for everyone.”

Above the slogan was a photograph of Jewish refugees who fled Germany in 1939 on a ship that was turned away from Havana, Cuba, and forced to return to Europe. More than 250 people aboard the ship were eventually killed by the Nazis.

About 200 protesters chanted on Sunday afternoon at Washington Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia near the U.S. capital.

About the same number gathered at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, where anxious families awaited relatives detained for hours after flights from countries affected by the presidential order.

At Los Angeles International Airport, police estimated 4,000 demonstrators crowded into and around terminals to protest Trump’s order, as chants of “refugees are welcome here” echoed through the arrivals hall.

Organizers estimated that more than 10,000 people packed Boston’s Copley Square to hear Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a vocal critic of Trump and a leader of the Democratic Party’s liberal wing, and other speakers.

During the protests, dozens of Muslims, some of them kneeling on protest signs, bowed in prayer on rugs laid out on a grassy patch of ground in the square.

In Houston, which was already filling up with visitors for next Sunday’s Super Bowl, about 500 people marched through the downtown.

Jennifer Fagen, 47, a sociology professor at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, said she hoped she did not lose her job for protesting.

“I’m Jewish, and it’s supposed to be ‘never again,'” Fagen said, referring to the Holocaust. “Jews should be the first ones to defend Muslims, considering what has happened to us, and it seems it’s being repeated under Trump.”

At Detroit Metropolitan Airport, police cordoned off sections of terminal as up to 3,000 demonstrators chanted, “No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here.”

Among the demonstrators were Wail Aljirafi and his wife, Samyeh Zindani of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and their three children.

“We want them to feel that they’re always included,” Zindani, a Yemeni-American, told Reuters.

In the Detroit suburb of Hamtramck, Michigan, home to a large number of Yemeni immigrant families and the nation’s first Muslim-majority city council, at least 600 people rallied outside City Hall.

Rama Alhoussaini, 23, a Syrian immigrant who lives in nearby Dearborn, said she and her family emigrated to Michigan in 1999 when she was 6 years old.

“Now for us to see this kind of hatred and bigotry, it breaks my heart,” she said. “It makes me feel like I am not wanted here.”

(Additional reporting by Susan Corwall, Ian Simpson and Lesley Wroughton in Washington, Brian Snyder in Boston, Ruthy Munoz in Houston, Chris Francescani in New York, Daina Beth Solomon in Los Angeles and Serena Maria Daniels in Detroit; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Jonathan Oatis)

Wall St. set to open lower after Trump’s travel curbs

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange

By Yashaswini Swamynathan

(Reuters) – U.S. stocks looked set to open lower on Monday, amid uncertainty following President Donald Trump’s orders to curb travel and immigration from certain countries.

Trump on Friday signed executive orders to bar admission of Syrian refugees and suspend travel to the United States from Syria, Iraq, Iran and four other countries on the grounds of national security.

Thousands of people rallied in major U.S. cities and at airports in protest, while several countries including long-standing American allies criticized the measures as discriminatory and divisive.

The promise of tax cuts and simpler regulations had lured investors into equity markets since Trump’s election in November, but some are worried about the potential risk of his protectionist policies.

The pullback in futures suggests that the Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> could fall below the 20,000 mark it hit for the first time ever on Wednesday.

“A new week of trading is getting off on a sour note, as key macro news, Fed action, international and domestic backlash over Trump’s immigration stand are putting investors on the defense,” Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial, wrote in a note.

“We look for a bumpy to negative ride as the ‘Worry Trade’ rules the day.”

Dow e-minis <1YMc1> were down 70 points, or 0.35 percent, at 8:32 a.m. ET (1332 GMT), with 21,512 contracts changing hands.

S&P 500 e-minis <ESc1> were down 9.25 points, or 0.4 percent, with 128,685 contracts traded.

Nasdaq 100 e-minis <NQc1> were down 21.5 points, or 0.42 percent, on volume of 22,585 contracts.

A report from the U.S. Commerce Department showed consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, increased 0.5 percent after a 0.2 percent gain in November.

Shares of big technology companies Microsoft <MSFT.O>, Alphabet <GOOGL.O> and Netflix <NFLX.O> were down between 0.60 percent and 0.90 percent in premarket trading on Monday. Apple <AAPL.O> and Facebook <FB.O>, which are scheduled to report results this week, were also lower.

Tempur Sealy <TPX.N> dropped 26 percent to $46.70 after the company said it terminated its contracts with mattress retailer Mattress Firm following disagreements over changes in their contracts.

Data technology company Ixia <XXIA.O> rose 5.8 percent to $19.25 after Keysight Technologies <KEYS.N> said it would buy the company for about $1.6 billion.

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

Trump tells Republican lawmakers: Enough talk. Time to deliver

Donald Trump speaking to Congress

By Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – President Donald Trump pushed Republican lawmakers on Thursday for swift action on a sweeping agenda including his planned U.S.-Mexican border wall, tax cuts and repealing the Obamacare law, despite tensions over timetables and priorities.

Congressional Republicans were in Philadelphia for a three-day retreat to hammer out a legislative agenda, with the party in control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives for the first time in a decade.

“This Congress is going to be the busiest Congress we’ve had in decades, maybe ever,” Trump said in a speech to the lawmakers at a Philadelphia hotel.

“Enough ‘all talk, no action.’ We have to deliver,” Trump added.

But Trump did not hold an expected question-and-answer session with the lawmakers, and his speech veered into side issues such as predicting crowd size for an anti-abortion march in Washington, alleging American voting irregularities and touting winning Pennsylvania in the Nov. 8 election.

House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who initially hesitated in endorsing Trump last year and has criticized him on some issues, disputed the notion that congressional Republicans were not in synch with the New York businessman who was sworn in less than a week ago having never previously held public office.

“We are on the same page with the White House,” Ryan said during a joint news conference with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“This is going to be an unconventional presidency,” Ryan added. “I think you know this by now. … I think we’re going to see unconventional activities like tweets and things like that. I think that’s just something that we’re all going to have to get used to.”

Trump pressed the lawmakers for action on repealing and replacing Democratic former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, even as Republicans scramble to devise a replacement plan, and lowering taxes on “all American businesses” and the middle class.

For weeks, Republicans talked about formulating an agenda for the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency. In recent days, the talk has turned into a 200-day agenda for passing major legislation before the lawmakers’ August recess.

“It’s going to take more than simply 100 days,” Ryan said.

Ryan said that it is “our goal is to get these laws done in 2017,” without guaranteeing that a replacement for Obamacare and a tax reform bill would be enacted by the end of December.

McConnell said lawmakers will take up legislation to provide $12 billion to $15 billion to pay for Trump’s planned wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday for the wall to proceed, part of a package of measures aimed at curbing illegal immigration, although the action has tested already frayed relations with Mexico.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said the pace of legislative action may frustrate Trump.

“President Trump comes from a different world,” McCarthy told reporters. “Out in the business community, he likes things done fast, and he’s going to continue to push them.”

PROTESTS IN PHILADELPHIA

Thousands of anti-Trump protesters took to the streets in Philadelphia, a heavily Democratic bastion that is one of the cities that could be stripped of federal funds for protecting illegal immigrants under a Trump directive.

Marchers carried signs including, “Fascist Pig,” “Protect My Health Care,” “Immigration Makes America Great,” “Planet Over Profit” and “Impeach Trump.”

During his speech, Trump took time to explain his side of the story on Mexico’s president canceling a meeting next week because of Trump’s insistence that America’s southern neighbor eventually pay for the wall. Mexico has said it will not.

Trump said a tax reform bill “will reduce our trade deficits, increase American exports and will generate revenue from Mexico that will pay for the wall, if we decide to go that route.”

McConnell and Ryan did not say whether Congress would offset the wall’s cost by cutting other programs or simply add to huge budget deficits that Republicans have criticized for years.

Ryan and McConnell also indicated congressional Republicans do not plan to modify U.S. law banning torture even as Trump considers bringing back a CIA program for holding terrorism suspects in secret overseas “black site” prisons where interrogation techniques often condemned as torture were used.

“I think the director of the CIA (Mike Pompeo) has made it clear he’s going to follow the law. And I believe virtually all of my members are comfortable with the state of the law on that issue now,” McConnell said.

“Torture’s not legal,” Ryan said. “And we agree with it not being legal.

In a highly unusual move for a visiting foreign leader, British Prime Minister Theresa May, who will see Trump in Washington on Friday, addressed the retreat, calling herself a “fellow conservative who believes in the same principles that underpin the agenda of your party.”

She was loudly applauded for praising Trump’s victory.

“Because of what you have done together, because of that great victory you have won, America can be stronger, greater, and more confident in the years ahead,” May said.

(Additional reporting by David Morgan and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Frances Kerry and Cynthia Osterman)

Trump expected to launch measures to curb illegal immigration

boy watching U.S. workers

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to begin signing executive orders aimed at curbing illegal immigration on Wednesday, beginning with a directive to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico and another to boost personnel needed to crack down on illegal immigrants, congressional aides with knowledge of the plan told Reuters.

In the coming days, Trump is expected to limit the number of refugees admitted to the United States to 50,000 a year, down from 100,000, and to impose a temporary ban on most refugees.

Trump, who took office last Friday, will begin signing the orders at the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday. On Twitter on Tuesday night, Trump reiterated his promise to build the border wall, which was a cornerstone of his presidential campaign and which he has promised to make Mexico pay for.

The border enforcement order includes plans to hire 5,000 more U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents used to apprehend migrants at the border and to triple the number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents used to arrest and deport migrants living in the United States illegally.

The Customs and Border Protection agency has already struggled to meet its hiring mandate, with a little more than 19,000 agents on the payroll, out of a congressionally mandated 21,000.

Immigration enforcement away from the border is also expected to be strengthened by seeking an end to “sanctuary cities” where local law enforcement officials refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

Trump will call for an end to this practice and may instruct the federal government to stop providing certain funds to cities that refuse to comply.

Later in the week, Trump is expected to suspend the issuing of visas to people from countries where it is deemed that adequate screening cannot occur. Immigration experts expect those countries to include Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Yemen.

A review will be conducted by the Trump administration to determine what screening must occur before travel for citizens from such countries can resume.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Franklin Paul and Frances Kerry)

Mexico boosts support for its migrants in the U.S.

A Mexican migrant talks to a family member through the border fence between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, United States, after a bi-national Mass in support of migrants in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico,

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s foreign ministry announced fresh steps on Wednesday to provide support to Mexican citizens living in the United States following the victory in last week’s U.S. presidential election by Donald Trump, who has promised to crack down on immigrants in the country illegally.

The ministry said it was acting to help Mexicans avoid fraud and abuses in the United States. It said it would expand the availability of mobile consulate services to reach more migrants in their communities, establish a 24-hour telephone line for questions about immigration, and provide more appointments for migrants to get passports, birth certificates and consular identification cards.

The ministry also said Mexico will “strengthen dialogue” with U.S. state and local authorities to protect its citizens, and added that migrants in the United States should “avoid any conflict situation” and stay out of trouble with the law.

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, said in an interview with the CBS program “60 Minutes” that aired on Sunday that his administration would focus on deporting immigrants with criminal records. Trump said during the campaign he would deport the estimated 11 million immigrants in the United States illegally.

During the campaign, Trump also promised to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border with Mexico paying for it, accused Mexico of sending rapists and drug runners into the United States and threatened to rip up the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Trump’s surprise victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton on Nov. 8 has shaken Mexico, pushing the beleaguered peso to record lows and forcing the government into crisis mode as it seeks to protect bilateral trade.

(Reporting by Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein and Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Will Dunham)