Donald Trump pretended he was doing something meaningful on Thursday after he was forced to cave in on adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
But his post-cave bait-and-switch to push an executive order is also going up in flames almost immediately after it was issued.
USA TODAY Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page broke it down during a discussion on MSNBC’s Hardball, explaining that the government already collects the data that Trump ordered to be collected in his new executive action.
“The government already calculates the number of illegal immigrants and the number of non-citizens who live in this country, and they’ve done that for some time,” she said.
Video:
USA TODAY reporter Susan Page explains why Trump’s executive order today was pretty meaningless. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/rCxwMEpvGM
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) July 12, 2019
Page said:
So just saying it’s not a cave does not make it not a cave. Just the attorney general saying congratulations, Mr. President, does not make it a congratulatory moment. And the executive order, it is not at all clear that it’s necessary to have a new executive order to give publicly available data from federal agencies to the Commerce Department. That would seem to be something that would be easy to do. And in fact, as you noted, the government already calculates the number of illegal immigrants and the number of non-citizens who live in this country, and they’ve done that for some time.
Trump is pulling out all the distractions after his census cave-in
Donald Trump’s executive order stunt that he announced on Thursday isn’t the only distraction he’s pulling out following his census loss.
It was also reported today that the administration would move forward with its raids on thousands of undocumented migrant families. According to The New York Times, “Nationwide raids to arrest thousands of members of undocumented families have been scheduled to begin Sunday, according to two current and one former homeland security officials.”
The raids, which had been delayed last month due to widespread backlash, will likely separate more families. Even the president’s acting DHS secretary has admitted as much.
Of course, none of these steps are being taken because they are sound policy solutions. They are just the latest in a two-year string of distractions meant to paper over an endless string of policy and political failures from this White House.
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