Trump said today that ‘they’ are asking him to hire 5,000 immigration judges and he’s completely opposed to the idea. But I have no idea who he’s talking about that’s asking for that many judges.
Here’s his comments:
President Trump: "We want a system where when people come in illegally they have to go out. A nice, simple system that works." pic.twitter.com/DZTSBTXHnC
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) June 25, 2018
He said something similar in a speech last week:
Trump: "We don't want judges, we want security on the border." pic.twitter.com/Bl3E3VBNXV
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) June 19, 2018
Ted Cruz has called for 350 new immigration judges to double what is currently there, in order to get rid of the backlog. Tom Cotton wrote a bill calling for 225 new immigration judges. But neither is anywhere near 5,000.
The Democrats had a crazy bill last week, but I looked and couldn’t find anything about 5,000 immigration judges.
So who in the heck is Trump talking about? Or is he just vastly exaggerating the number to keep from mentioning a specific person?
As I’m writing this, I see the White House presser is on and John Roberts just asked this very same question of Sarah Sanders, on who is suggesting 5,000 new judges to Trump. Sanders responded that there have been a number of proposals, but didn’t elaborate any further on who is suggesting that. Which then tells us that it’s bunk. Nobody is suggesting that.
Here’s the thing. I don’t think Ted Cruz or Tom Cotton wants to see even the number immigration judges they’ve suggested there permanently. It’s simply to get rid of the backlog as we fix the illegal immigration process.
So I honestly don’t know what Trump is really talking about.