Trump steps up immigration crackdown

US President Donald Trump’s administration has directed prosecutors to investigate officials who resist immigration enforcement efforts, intensifying a sweeping crackdown that Trump launched the day he took office.

He also announced deployment of an extra 1,500 US troops to the Mexican border.

In a memo seen by Reuters, Trump’s acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, told Justice Department staff that state and local authorities must cooperate with the immigration crackdown and federal prosecutors “shall investigate incidents involving any such misconduct for potential prosecution.”

The Justice Department could also challenge laws that complicate the effort, Bove wrote.

The policy was issued as the new Republican administration prepared to step up policing of illegal immigration in cities with significant migrant populations, setting up potential confrontations with officials in cities such as New York and Chicago that limit cooperation with such efforts.

The new memo underscored how Trump’s Justice Department may try to back his immigration agenda by expanding threats of criminal charges beyond immigrants or those who employ them to city and state officials. It is the latest in a series of executive actions Trump has taken to curb illegal immigration, his top priority.

US civil rights groups meanwhile warned that an executive order signed by Trump on Monday – setting a 60-day window for officials to identify countries whose vetting and screening processes are “so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries” – laid the groundwork for reinstatement of a ban on travelers from predominantly Muslim or Arab countries.

Trump’s administration has shut down the White House’s Spanish language page. As of this week, visitors to whitehouse.gov/es now see an error message and the words “page not found” beneath an image of the White House, reports AFP.

Trump also floated ending federal disaster relief and leaving states to fend for themselves during emergencies in his first Oval Office interview since returning to power.

With Los Angeles scorched by wildfires and the eastern United States still recovering from two devastating hurricanes, Trump falsely accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of turning its back on victims.

“FEMA has not done their job for the last four years. You know, I had FEMA working really well. We had hurricanes in Florida, we had Alabama tornados,” Trump told Fox News.

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