The anti-immigrant extremists in charge of the U.S. immigration system

  The anti-immigrant movement has increasingly gained influence over the past decade, reaching a high point during the Trump administration. Top administrative positions in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have been filled by right-wing extremists, many with close ties to hate groups. As a result, anti-immigrant policies that used to be regarded as extreme have been normalized, and dehumanizing rhetoric toward immigrants has become rampant in mainstream media.

  The new wave of anti-immigrant extremists leading DHS is responsible for overseeing the nation’s entire immigration system, from adjudicating visa petitions and applications for citizenship and asylum to handling arrests and deportations. These extremists have also played a role in, or defended, policies that outrage many Americans, such as family separation, the increased use of ICE raids, and the disparagement of locations that have sanctuary policies.

What should and should not be in any Homeland Security funding deal

  It is almost hard to believe that the very same funding deal that President Donald Trump rejected in December when he drove the country into a partial government shutdown—and that Trump and all but six Senate Republicans rejected again last week—is the one that Congress finally adopted unanimously and that President Trump ultimately signed the very next day. The pain the shutdown caused to approximately two million federal government workers and contractors, as well as to their families and communities, was literally all for nothing. With this deal, Trump temporarily caved on his commitment to shut down the government for “months or even years” if he failed to secure $5.7 billion for wall funding. However, securing that funding remains his top focus heading into a bipartisan, bicameral conference committee that aims to produce full-year government funding legislation for both House and Senate consideration.

Questions the Trump administration needs to answer about the border wall

  In the U.S.-Mexico border region, an area that stretches nearly 2,000 miles, decisions about border security affect the daily lives of roughly 12 million people. The United States already has 653 miles of border fencing, and much of the rest of the border is comprised of the Rio Grande or located in some of the country’s most inhospitable locations, where a wall would be impractical and unnecessary. In addition to fencing, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, uses an array of surveillance and technology to monitor the border in real time.

  Yet both as a candidate and as president, Donald Trump has repeatedly called for the construction of a “big, fat, beautiful wall” along the entire U.S.-Mexico border. The administration recently concluded a request for proposals from firms to construct the wall, and it has already started to send out notices to landowners along the border notifying them that the federal government will likely be seizing their private property.