Trump calls illegal immigrants 'invaders', wants immediate deportation

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said on Sunday that people who enter the United States illegally should be sent back immediately to where they came from without any judicial process, likening them to invaders who are trying to "break into" the country.

His proposal drew immediate criticism from legal analysts and immigrant rights advocates who said it would violate the US Constitution's due process provision, which applies to citizens and non-citizens alike.

In a series of tweets on Sunday, Mr Trump said: "We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came."

"Cannot accept all of the people trying to break into our Country. Strong Borders, No Crime!"

Mr Trump did not differentiate between illegal immigrants and people who entered the US to seek asylum protection.

"The President of the US has just forcefully proposed the end of political asylum and no due process for migrants," Ms Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defence Fund, wrote on Twitter.

Mr Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, told Reuters: "The administration cannot simply get rid of all process for immigrants. The due process clause absolutely applies. It is not a choice."

Authorities can bypass due process protections with the expedited removal policy that allows quick deportations if an immigrant is apprehended within 160 km of the border and has been in the country less than 14 days. Those seeking asylum must be granted a hearing.

Mr Trump's tweets on Sunday came after a week of global outcry over images and video of crying children and their distraught parents separated at the US-Mexico border.

Critics in Mr Trump's Republican Party urged him to abandon the policy. The President buckled to the pressure on Wednesday, issuing an executive order that ended the separations.

But the government has yet to reunite more than 2,000 children with their parents.

Mr Trump's frustration over the issue has grown since. He has issued a drumbeat of criticism of the immigration system and Democrats in Congress, while using increasingly harsh terms such as "invasion" and "infestation" to describe illegal immigration.

"He just does not want anybody here. He wants people to just be sent back, no matter what," said Mr Jorge Baron, executive director for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

While some who advocate for stricter immigration rules have argued that people are making fraudulent asylum claims or abusing the loopholes in US immigration laws, Mr Baron said Mr Trump's views went way beyond those arguments.

Mr Trump's zero tolerance policy of prosecuting adults for entering the country illegally entails a process that typically takes many months.

That required children to be separated from parents because they are not legally allowed to be kept in detention for more than 20 days. Keeping the children with their migrant parents as they await court proceedings faces obstacles, however, including the lack of sufficient housing, a paucity of immigration judges and a daunting backlog of cases. - REUTERS