DOJ confirms Trump’s new executive order doesn’t really fix the problem…

There were some very interesting remarks from the DOJ after Trump signed his executive order today.

But before we get to that, here’s a short list of what the new Trump order does from CBS News White House reporter:

You can read the entire executive order here. It’s not very long.

After Trump signed the executive order, DOJ official Gene Hamilton told reporters that the Trump administration can only keep families together for up to 20 days, because the Flores settlement still takes precedence:

Hamilton says it’s up to a federal judge if that 20 days gets extended or not:

I’m not sure how long it takes from the time an illegal is arrested to the time they are either deported or allowed to leave, but I’m betting it’s longer than 20 days. Which means, if Hamilton is correct, that these families would then be separated at the 20-day mark unless this judge intervenes.

Which also means in the end Trump’s executive order really doesn’t do very much. But that’s not surprising since we know Trump really is bound by the law. This is why his executive order also called instructed the “DOJ to seek a modification to Flores to allow detention of minors thru parents’ criminal cases”.

The other solution is that a fix must come from Congress, but it’s doubtful Democrats will ever agree to that considering they want to ride their anti-Trump wave to election day.

As for the children who are currently separated from their families…

UPDATE:

HHS takes back what it said…

UPDATE:

It appears some help is on the way to deal with all the immigration cases (via Axios):

Defense Secretary James Mattis has approved a Justice Department request to send 21 active-duty military lawyers to the southern border, the Pentagon confirmed to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Wednesday night.

The details: The DOJ wants the active-duty Judge Advocate Generals (JAGs) sent to six cities in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico to work as prosecutors for roughly six months on cases regarding illegal immigrants. The decision comes in the heat of the battle over the Trump administration’s application of a “zero-tolerance” policy to illegal border crossings, which refers all adults crossing illegally to the DOJ for criminal prosecution.


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