Trump's plan of January 19, 2019

Excerpts from President Donald Trump's speech

of January 19, 2019

 

( full speech transcript: here, fact-check and comparison

   to Senate DACA and border bill of Feb, 2018: here )

 

 

“Our plan includes the following:

 -$800 million in urgent humanitarian assistance;

 -$805 million for drug detection technology to help secure our ports of entry.

 -An additional 2,750 border agents and law enforcement professionals,

 -75 new immigration judge teams to reduce the court backlog of - believe it or not - almost 900,000 cases.

 

Our plan includes critical measures to protect migrant children from exploitation and abuse. This includes a new system to allow Central American minors to apply for asylum in their home countries, and reform to promote family reunification for unaccompanied children, thousands of whom wind up on our border doorstep.

 

To physically secure our border, the plan includes $5.7 billion for a strategic deployment of physical barriers, or a wall. This is not a 2,000 mile concrete structure from sea to sea. These are steel barriers in high priority locations. Much of the border is already protected by natural barriers, such as mountains and water. We already have many miles of barrier, including 115 miles that we are currently building or under contract. It will be done quickly. Our request will add another 230 miles this year in the areas our border agents most urgently need.

 

Furthermore, in order to build the trust and goodwill necessary to begin real immigration reform, there are two more elements to my plan. Number one is three years of legislative relief for 700,000 DACA recipients brought here unlawfully by their parents at a young age many years ago. This extension will give them access to work permits, social security numbers, and protection from deportation, most importantly. Secondly, our proposal provides a three-year extension of temporary protected status or TPS. This means that 300,000 immigrants whose protected status is facing expiration will now have three more years of certainty, so that Congress can work on a larger immigration deal.”