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    The Trauma of the Trump Years Is Being Rewritten

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    Americans rehabilitate ex-presidents all the time.It was fascinating to see the rebranding of George W. Bush — the man who took us into the disastrous Iraq war and horribly bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina — into a charming amateur artist who played buddies with and passed candy to Michelle Obama.And it didn’t just happen for him. The Monica Lewinsky scandal faded in our consideration of Bill Clinton. Barack Obama’s reliance on drone strikes and his moniker “deporter in chief” rarely receive mention now.This is because our political memories aren’t fixed, but are constantly being adjusted. Politicians’ negatives are often diminished and their positives inflated. As Gallup noted in 2013, “Americans tend to be more charitable in their evaluations of past presidents than they are when the presidents are in office.”Without a doubt, Donald Trump benefits from this phenomenon. The difference is that other presidents’ shortcomings pale in comparison to his and his benefit isn’t passive: He’s seeking the office again and, as part of that, working to rewrite the history of his presidency. His desperate attempts, first to cling to power, then to regain it, include denying the 2020 election results and embracing the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection that his denials helped fuel.His revisionism has worked remarkably well, particularly among Republicans. A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll conducted in December found that Republicans “are now less likely to believe that Jan. 6 participants were ‘mostly violent,’ less likely to believe Trump bears responsibility for the attack and are slightly less likely to view Joe Biden’s election as legitimate” than they were in 2021.This is one of the truly remarkable aspects of the current presidential cycle: the degree to which our collective memory of Trump’s litany of transgressions have become less of a political problem for him than might otherwise be expected. Even the multiple legal charges he now faces are almost all about things that happened years ago and, to many citizens, involve things that the country should put in the rearview mirror.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Donald Trump en campaña: estas son sus propuestas migratorias

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      El expresidente Donald Trump está planeando una expansión extrema de sus medidas represivas contra la migración aplicadas durante su primer mandato si logra regresar al poder en 2025, incluida la preparación de redadas a gran escala de personas que viven en Estados Unidos sin permiso legal y concentrarlas en campamentos cada vez más extensos mientras esperan a ser expulsados.Estos planes restringirían en gran medida tanto la inmigración legal como la ilegal de muchas maneras.Trump quiere revivir las políticas fronterizas de su primer periodo, entre ellas la prohibición del ingreso de personas de ciertas naciones con mayoría musulmana y la reinstauración de una política de la era de la COVID-19 de rechazar solicitudes de asilo, aunque en esta oportunidad basaría el rechazo en aseveraciones de que los migrantes portan otras enfermedades infecciosas como tuberculosis.Trump planea desalojar del país a inmigrantes que habitan aquí sin permiso legal y deportar a millones de personas cada año.Para ayudar a acelerar las deportaciones masivas, Trump está preparando una gran ampliación de una forma de remoción que no requiere de audiencias con el debido proceso. Para ayudar al Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE, por su sigla en inglés) a llevar a cabo redadas masivas, Trump planea reasignar otros agentes federales y sumar a la tarea a policías municipales y efectivos de la Guardia Nacional aportados voluntariamente por los estados gobernados por republicanos.Para aliviar la presión sobre los centros de detención del ICE, Trump desea construir campamentos enormes para detener personas mientras sus casos son procesados y esperan sus vuelos de deportación. Además, con el fin de sortear cualquier negativa del Congreso para apropiarse de los recursos necesarios, Trump redirigiría dinero del presupuesto del ejército, como lo hizo en su primer mandato para invertir más dinero en el muro fronterizo del que el Congreso había autorizado.“Trump desatará el vasto arsenal de poderes federales para implementar la represión migratoria más espectacular”, dijo Stephen Miller, el exasesor de Trump en la Casa Blanca, quien fue el principal arquitecto de sus esfuerzos de control fronterizo.Cooper Neill para The New York TimesEn una referencia pública a sus planes, Trump le dijo a una multitud en Iowa en septiembre: “Siguiendo el modelo de Eisenhower, llevaremos a cabo la operación de deportación nacional más grande en la historia de Estados Unidos”. La referencia en cuestión fue una campaña de 1954 para arrestar y expulsar a inmigrantes mexicanos que recibió su nombre de un insulto étnico: “Operación Espalda Mojada”.La gran cantidad de planes para 2025 de Trump equivale a un ataque a la migración a una escala nunca antes vista en la historia estadounidense moderna. Millones de migrantes que viven en Estados Unidos sin permiso legal tendrían prohibida la entrada al país o serían desarraigados después de años o incluso décadas de haberse establecido aquí.Tal escala de expulsiones planeadas generaría retos logísticos, financieros y diplomáticos y sería impugnada de manera enérgica en los tribunales. Sin embargo, no hay duda de la magnitud y ambición del cambio que Trump está contemplando.En una segunda presidencia de Trump, se cancelarían las visas de los estudiantes extranjeros que hayan participado en manifestaciones en contra de Israel o propalestinas. Los funcionarios consulares estadounidenses en el extranjero recibirían instrucciones de profundizar la revisión ideológica de los solicitantes de visa para bloquear a personas que el gobierno de Trump considere que tienen actitudes indeseables. A las personas con un estatus de protección temporal porque provienen de ciertos países considerados inseguros, lo que les permite vivir y trabajar legalmente en Estados Unidos, se les revocaría ese estatus.De forma similar, muchas personas a quienes se les ha permitido residir en el país temporalmente por razones humanitarias también perderían ese estatus y tendrían que abandonar el país, incluyendo a decenas de miles de afganos desalojados durante la toma del poder de los talibanes en 2021 a quienes se les permitió ingresar a Estados Unidos. Los afganos que poseen visas especiales concedidas a personas que ayudaron a las fuerzas estadounidenses serían investigados de nuevo para verificar que de verdad colaboraron.Además, Trump intentaría poner fin a la ciudadanía por nacimiento para los bebés nacidos en Estados Unidos de padres que viven en el país sin permiso legal mediante la proclamación de que esa política será la nueva posición del gobierno y la instrucción a las agencias de dejar de emitir documentos que comprueben la ciudadanía de esos bebés, como tarjetas de Seguridad Social y pasaportes. La legitimidad legal de esa política, como casi todos los planes de Trump, seguramente terminará debatiéndose en la Corte Suprema.En entrevistas con The New York Times, varios asesores de Trump dieron la descripción más amplia y detallada hasta la fecha de la agenda migratoria del expresidente para un posible segundo mandato. En particular, la campaña de Trump delegó las preguntas para este artículo a Stephen Miller, un arquitecto de las políticas migratorias del primer periodo de Trump que se mantiene cercano al exmandatario y que muy probablemente tendría un cargo importante en su segundo periodo.Miller afirmó en una entrevista que tocó múltiples temas que todos los pasos que los asesores de Trump se están preparando para dar se basan en estatutos existentes; aunque es posible que el equipo de Trump intente renovar las leyes de inmigración, el plan fue elaborado para no necesitar nueva legislación sustantiva. Además, aunque Miller reconoce que surgirían demandas para impugnar casi cada una de las medidas, describió la intimidante variedad de tácticas del equipo de Trump como un “ataque veloz” diseñado para abrumar a los abogados de derechos de los migrantes.“Cualquier activista que dude en lo más mínimo de la determinación del presidente Trump está cometiendo un error drástico: Trump desatará el vasto arsenal de poderes federales para implementar la represión migratoria más espectacular”, dijo Miller, quien agregó: “Los activistas legales de la inmigración no entenderán lo que estará pasando”.Todd Schulte, presidente de FWD.us, un grupo de defensa de la inmigración y la justicia penal que combatió repetidas veces al gobierno de Trump, dijo que los planes del equipo de Trump se basaban en una “demagogia xenófoba” que atrae a su base política más radical.“Los estadounidenses deben entender que estas propuestas políticas son parte de una agenda autoritaria, a menudo ilegal, que destrozaría casi todos los aspectos de la vida estadounidense: hundiría la economía y violaría los derechos civiles básicos de millones de inmigrantes y estadounidenses nativos por igual”, dijo Schulte.‘Envenenando la sangre’Migrantes se congregan frente al Hotel Roosevelt en Manhattan en agosto, esperando ser procesados.Jeenah Moon para The New York TimesDesde que Trump dejó el cargo, el ambiente político en lo referente a la inmigración se ha movido en su dirección. Ahora es más capaz de aprovechar ese entorno si es reelecto de lo que lo era cuando ganó la elección como un candidato recién llegado a la política.El retroceso de la pandemia de COVID-19 y la reanudación del flujo de los viajes han contribuido a generar una crisis migratoria global, con millones de venezolanos y centroamericanos que huyen de la convulsión en sus países y africanos que llegan a naciones latinoamericanas antes de continuar su viaje hacia el norte. A causa de las cifras récord de inmigrantes en la frontera sur y en ciudades como Nueva York y Chicago, los votantes están frustrados e incluso algunos demócratas piden medidas más duras contra los inmigrantes y presionan a la Casa Blanca para que maneje mejor la crisis.Trump y sus asesores han visto la oportunidad y ahora saben mejor cómo aprovecharla. Los asistentes en los que Trump confió en los caóticos primeros días de su primer mandato a veces estaban en desacuerdo y les faltaba experiencia acerca de cómo manipular las palancas del poder federal. Hacia el final de su primer mandato, los funcionarios del gabinete y los abogados que intentaron frenar algunas de sus acciones —como su secretario de Seguridad Nacional y jefe de personal John Kelly— habían sido despedidos y quienes permanecieron con él habían aprendido mucho.En un segundo mandato, Trump planea instalar un equipo que no lo restringirá.Desde que gran parte de la represión a la migración del primer mandato de Trump enfrentó problemas para avanzar en los tribunales, el entorno legal se ha inclinado a su favor: sus cuatro años de nombramientos judiciales dejaron tribunales federales de apelación y una Corte Suprema mucho más conservadores que los tribunales que escucharon las impugnaciones a las políticas de su primer mandato.La lucha contra la Acción Diferida para los Llegados en la Infancia (DACA, por su sigla en inglés) es un ejemplo de ello.DACA es un programa de la era de Obama que protege de la deportación y concede permisos de trabajo a personas que ingresaron a Estados Unidos de forma ilegal cuando eran niños. Trump trató de ponerle fin, pero la Corte Suprema lo bloqueó por motivos procesales en junio de 2020.Miller indicó que Trump intentaría de nuevo acabar con DACA. Además, la mayoría cinco a cuatro en la Corte Suprema que bloqueó el último intento ya no existe: algunos meses después del fallo sobre DACA, la magistrada Ruth Bader Ginsburg falleció y Trump la remplazó con un sexto miembro conservador, la magistrada Amy Coney Barrett.La retórica de Trump se ha mantenido bien sincronizada con su agenda cada vez más extrema en materia de inmigración.Su avivamiento del miedo y la ira hacia los inmigrantes —presionando por un muro fronterizo y llamando “violadores” a los mexicanos— impulsó su toma del poder del Partido Republicano en 2016. Como presidente, reflexionó en privado sobre la posibilidad de desarrollar una frontera militarizada como la de Israel, preguntó si los migrantes que cruzaban la frontera podrían recibir disparos en las piernas y apoyó un muro fronterizo propuesto rematado con púas desgarrantes y pintado de negro para quemar la piel de los migrantes.Mientras ha hecho campaña para la tercera nominación presidencial consecutiva del partido, su tono antiinmigrante no ha hecho más que volverse más duro. En una entrevista reciente con un sitio web de derecha, Trump afirmó, sin pruebas, que los líderes extranjeros estaban vaciando deliberadamente sus “manicomios” para enviar a los pacientes a través de la frontera sur de Estados Unidos como migrantes. Dijo que los inmigrantes estaban “envenenando la sangre de nuestro país”. En un mitin el miércoles en Florida, los comparó con el asesino en serie y caníbal ficticio Hannibal Lecter, diciendo: “Eso es lo que está entrando a nuestro país en este momento”.De manera similar, Trump había prometido llevar a cabo deportaciones masivas cuando se postuló para el cargo en 2016, pero el gobierno solo logró varios cientos de miles de deportaciones por año bajo su presidencia, a la par de otros gobiernos recientes. Si tienen otra oportunidad, Trump y su equipo están decididos a alcanzar cifras anuales de millones.Mantener fuera a la genteMigrantes esperan ser escoltados por agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza a un área de procesamiento, en septiembre. El avivamiento del miedo y la ira hacia los inmigrantes causado por Trump impulsó su toma del poder del Partido Republicano en 2016. Mark Abramson para The New York TimesEl plan migratorio de Trump es continuar donde se quedó e ir mucho más lejos. No solo reviviría algunas de las políticas que fueron calificadas de draconianas durante su presidencia, muchas de las cuales eliminó la Casa Blanca de Joe Biden, sino que también las ampliaría y las haría más estrictas.Un ejemplo se centra en expandir las políticas del primer periodo dirigidas a mantener a personas extranjeras fuera del país. Trump planea suspender el programa de refugiados y volver a prohibir de manera categórica el ingreso de visitantes de países problemáticos poniendo de nuevo en marcha una versión de su prohibición a los viajes desde varios países principalmente de mayoría musulmana, lo que el presidente Biden calificó de discriminatorio y canceló en su primer día en el cargo.Miller señaló que Trump también utilizaría diplomacia coercitiva para inducir a otros países a colaborar, incluso haciendo de la cooperación una condición para cualquier otro compromiso bilateral. Por ejemplo, un segundo gobierno de Trump buscaría restablecer un acuerdo con México para que los solicitantes de asilo permanezcan en ese país mientras sus peticiones son procesadas (no hay certeza de que México lo acepte; un tribunal mexicano ha precisado que ese trato viola los derechos humanos).Trump también intentaría revivir los acuerdos de “tercer país seguro” con varios países de Centroamérica y establecer acuerdos similares en África, Asia y Sudamérica. En virtud de esos acuerdos, los países aceptan recibir a posibles solicitantes de asilo de otras naciones específicas y permitirles solicitar asilo ahí.Aunque estos acuerdos tradicionalmente solo han cubierto a los inmigrantes que pasaron previamente por un tercer país, la ley federal no exige ese límite y un segundo gobierno de Trump buscaría hacer esos acuerdos sin él, en parte como un disuasivo para los inmigrantes que hacen lo que el equipo de Trump considera solicitudes de asilo ilegítimas.Miller añadió que, al mismo tiempo, los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades de Estados Unidos (CDC, por su sigla en inglés) invocarían la ley de poderes de emergencia de salud pública conocida como Título 42 para rehusarse de nuevo a escuchar cualquier petición de asilo de personas que lleguen a la frontera sur. El gobierno de Trump había discutido internamente esa idea a principios del mandato de Trump, pero algunos secretarios del gabinete se opusieron con el argumento de que no había una emergencia de salud pública que la justificara legalmente. Al final, el gobierno la implementó durante la pandemia de coronavirus.Tras afirmar que desde entonces la idea ha ganado aceptación en la práctica —Biden inicialmente mantuvo la política— Miller aseguró que Trump invocaría el Título 42 y daría como razones “cepas graves de influenza, tuberculosis, sarna, otras enfermedades respiratorias como el virus respiratorio sincitial y más, o simplemente el problema general de que la migración masiva es una amenaza para la salud pública que trae una variedad de enfermedades transmisibles”.Trump y sus asistentes aún no han dicho si reimplementarían uno de los elementos disuasorios más polémicos a la inmigración no autorizada que impulsó como presidente: separar a los niños de sus padres, lo que provocó traumas entre los inmigrantes y dificultades para reunir a las familias. Cuando se le presionó, Trump se negó en repetidas ocasiones a descartar revivir la política. Después de muestras de indignación por la práctica, Trump le puso fin en 2018 y, más tarde, un juez impidió que el gobierno volviera a ponerla en efecto.Deportaciones masivasAgentes federales de inmigración concentrados para una operación de arresto en mayo en Pompano Beach, Florida.Saul Martinez para The New York TimesPoco después de que Trump anunció su campaña presidencial para 2024 en noviembre pasado, se reunió con Tom Homan, quien dirigió el ICE durante el primer año y medio del gobierno de Trump y fue uno de los primeros en proponer la separación de familias para disuadir a los inmigrantes.En una entrevista, Homan recordó que en esa reunión “aceptó regresar” para un segundo mandato y afirmó que “ayudaría a organizar y dirigir la operación de deportación más grande jamás vista en este país”.La visión de los asesores de Trump de deportaciones masivas abruptas llevaría a una convulsión social y económica, lo que perturbaría el mercado de la vivienda e industrias importantes como la agricultura y el sector de servicios.Miller presentó tal perturbación desde una perspectiva favorable.“La deportación masiva será una alteración del mercado laboral celebrada por los trabajadores estadounidenses, a quienes ahora se les ofrecerán salarios más altos con mejores beneficios para ocupar estos puestos de trabajo”, dijo. “Los estadounidenses también celebrarán el hecho de que las leyes de nuestra nación ahora se aplican por igual y que un grupo selecto ya no está mágicamente exento”.Un paso planeado para superar los obstáculos legales y logísticos sería incrementar de manera significativa una forma de deportaciones rápidas conocida como “remoción acelerada”. Esta les niega a los migrantes que viven en el país sin un permiso legal las audiencias habituales y la oportunidad de presentar apelaciones, las cuales pueden tardar meses o años (en especial cuando las personas no están en custodia) y han llevado a un atraso enorme en el procesamiento de los casos. Una ley de 1996 señala que las personas pueden ser sujetas a la remoción acelerada hasta dos años después de su llegada, pero, hasta el momento, el poder ejecutivo la ha usado con mayor cautela expulsando enseguida a personas descubiertas cerca de la frontera poco después de haber cruzado.El gobierno de Trump intentó ampliar el uso de la remoción acelerada, pero un tribunal la bloqueó y después el equipo de Biden canceló la ampliación. No se sabe si la Corte Suprema determinará que es constitucional utilizar la ley contra personas que han vivido durante un periodo significativo en Estados Unidos y expresan temor de persecución si son enviados a su país natal.Trump también ha mencionado que invocaría una ley arcaica, la Ley de Enemigos Extranjeros de 1798, para expulsar a sospechosos de ser miembros de los cárteles de droga y pandillas criminales sin debido proceso. La ley permite deportaciones sumarias de personas provenientes de países con los que Estados Unidos está en guerra, que han invadido Estados Unidos o que han participado en “incursiones predatorias”.Tom Homan, quien dirigió el ICE durante el primer año y medio del gobierno de Trump, afirmó que le dijo al expresidente que “ayudaría a organizar y dirigir la operación de deportación más grande jamás vista en este país”.Rebecca Noble para The New York TimesLa Corte Suprema ha permitido usos en el pasado de esa ley en tiempos de guerra. Sin embargo, su redacción parece requerir un vínculo con las acciones de un gobierno extranjero, así que no se sabe si los magistrados estarían de acuerdo en que un presidente la estire para que abarque la actividad de los cárteles de la droga.De manera más general, Miller manifestó que un nuevo gobierno de Trump pasaría de la práctica del ICE de arrestar a personas específicas a llevar a cabo redadas en lugares de trabajo y otros lugares públicos destinadas a arrestar de una sola vez a grandes cantidades de inmigrantes que viven en el país sin permiso legal.Miller comentó que para hacer que el proceso de encontrar y deportar a los inmigrantes que ya viven en del país sin permiso legal sea “radicalmente más rápido y eficiente”, el equipo de Trump incluiría a “los tipos correctos de abogados y de formuladores de políticas” dispuestos a llevar a cabo tales ideas.Además, debido a la magnitud de los arrestos y deportaciones que se contemplan, planean construir “enormes instalaciones de detención que funcionarían como centros de preparación” para inmigrantes mientras avanzan sus casos y esperan ser trasladados en avión a otros países.Miller declaró que es posible que los nuevos campamentos se construyan “en terrenos abiertos en Texas cerca de la frontera”.Relató que el ejército los construiría bajo la autoridad y control del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional. Aunque advirtió que aún no había planos específicos, dijo que los campamentos luicirían profesionales y similares a otras instalaciones para migrantes que se han construido cerca de la frontera.Estos campos también podrían permitirle al gobierno incrementar el ritmo y el volumen de las deportaciones de personas indocumentadas que han vivido en Estados Unidos durante años y por lo tanto no están sujetas a la expulsión por la vía rápida. Si realizar un esfuerzo a largo plazo para obtener un permiso para permanecer en el país significara permanecer encerrados mientras tanto, algunos podrían darse por vencidos y aceptar de forma voluntaria la expulsión sin pasar por el proceso completo.El uso de estos campamentos, dijo Miller, probablemente se centraría más en adultos solteros porque el gobierno no puede retener a niños de forma indefinida bajo una orden judicial de larga data conocida como el acuerdo Flores. Por lo tanto, cualquier familia llevada a las instalaciones tendría que entrar y salir más rápidamente, dijo.El gobierno de Trump intentó revocar el acuerdo Flores, pero la Corte Suprema no resolvió el asunto antes de que terminara el mandato de Trump. Miller afirmó que el equipo de Trump lo intentaría de nuevo.Miller añadió que para incrementar el número de agentes disponibles para las redadas del ICE, funcionarios de otras agencias federales del orden serían reasignados temporalmente y efectivos de la Guardia Nacional estatal y policías locales, al menos de estados liderados por republicanos dispuestos a hacerlo, serían sumados a los esfuerzos de control de la inmigración.Si bien una ley conocida como Ley Posse Comitatus generalmente prohíbe el uso de las fuerzas armadas con fines de mantenimiento del orden público, otra ley llamada Ley de Insurrección crea una excepción. Miller aseguró que Trump invocaría la Ley de Insurrección en la frontera, lo que permitiría el uso de tropas federales para detener a los inmigrantes.“En resumen”, concluyó Miller, “el presidente Trump hará lo que sea necesario”.Zolan Kanno-Youngs More

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      Sweeping Raids and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans

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      Former President Donald J. Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025 — including preparing to round up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.The plans would sharply restrict both legal and illegal immigration in a multitude of ways.Mr. Trump wants to revive his first-term border policies, including banning entry by people from certain Muslim-majority nations and reimposing a Covid 19-era policy of refusing asylum claims — though this time he would base that refusal on assertions that migrants carry other infectious diseases like tuberculosis.He plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport people by the millions per year.To help speed mass deportations, Mr. Trump is preparing an enormous expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings. To help Immigration and Customs Enforcement carry out sweeping raids, he plans to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states.To ease the strain on ICE detention facilities, Mr. Trump wants to build huge camps to detain people while their cases are processed and they await deportation flights. And to get around any refusal by Congress to appropriate the necessary funds, Mr. Trump would redirect money in the military budget, as he did in his first term to spend more on a border wall than Congress had authorized.“Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” said Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s former White House aide who was the chief architect of his border control efforts.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesIn a public reference to his plans, Mr. Trump told a crowd in Iowa in September: “Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” The reference was to a 1954 campaign to round up and expel Mexican immigrants that was named for an ethnic slur — “Operation Wetback.”The constellation of Mr. Trump’s 2025 plans amounts to an assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American history. Millions of undocumented immigrants would be barred from the country or uprooted from it years or even decades after settling here.Such a scale of planned removals would raise logistical, financial and diplomatic challenges and would be vigorously challenged in court. But there is no mistaking the breadth and ambition of the shift Mr. Trump is eyeing.In a second Trump presidency, the visas of foreign students who participated in anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian protests would be canceled. U.S. consular officials abroad will be directed to expand ideological screening of visa applicants to block people the Trump administration considers to have undesirable attitudes. People who were granted temporary protected status because they are from certain countries deemed unsafe, allowing them to lawfully live and work in the United States, would have that status revoked.Similarly, numerous people who have been allowed to live in the country temporarily for humanitarian reasons would also lose that status and be kicked out, including tens of thousands of the Afghans who were evacuated amid the 2021 Taliban takeover and allowed to enter the United States. Afghans holding special visas granted to people who helped U.S. forces would be revetted to see if they really did.And Mr. Trump would try to end birthright citizenship for babies born in the United States to undocumented parents — by proclaiming that policy to be the new position of the government and by ordering agencies to cease issuing citizenship-affirming documents like Social Security cards and passports to them. That policy’s legal legitimacy, like nearly all of Mr. Trump’s plans, would be virtually certain to end up before the Supreme Court.In interviews with The New York Times, several Trump advisers gave the most expansive and detailed description yet of Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda in a potential second term. In particular, Mr. Trump’s campaign referred questions for this article to Stephen Miller, an architect of Mr. Trump’s first-term immigration policies who remains close to him and is expected to serve in a senior role in a second administration.All of the steps Trump advisers are preparing, Mr. Miller contended in a wide-ranging interview, rely on existing statutes; while the Trump team would likely seek a revamp of immigration laws, the plan was crafted to need no new substantive legislation. And while acknowledging that lawsuits would arise to challenge nearly every one of them, he portrayed the Trump team’s daunting array of tactics as a “blitz” designed to overwhelm immigrant-rights lawyers.“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Mr. Miller said, adding, “The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.”Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, an immigration and criminal justice advocacy group that repeatedly fought the Trump administration, said the Trump team’s plans relied on “xenophobic demagoguery” that appeals to his hardest-core political base.“Americans should understand these policy proposals are an authoritarian, often illegal, agenda that would rip apart nearly every aspect of American life — tanking the economy, violating the basic civil rights of millions of immigrants and native-born Americans alike,” Mr. Schulte said.‘Poisoning the Blood’Migrants gather outside the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan in August, waiting to be processed.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesSince Mr. Trump left office, the political environment on immigration has moved in his direction. He is also more capable now of exploiting that environment if he is re-elected than he was when he first won election as an outsider.The ebbing of the Covid-19 pandemic and resumption of travel flows have helped stir a global migrant crisis, with millions of Venezuelans and Central Americans fleeing turmoil and Africans arriving in Latin American countries before continuing their journey north. Amid the record numbers of migrants at the southern border and beyond it in cities like New York and Chicago, voters are frustrated and even some Democrats are calling for tougher action against immigrants and pressuring the White House to better manage the crisis.Mr. Trump and his advisers see the opening, and now know better how to seize it. The aides Mr. Trump relied upon in the chaotic early days of his first term were sometimes at odds and lacked experience in how to manipulate the levers of federal power. By the end of his first term, cabinet officials and lawyers who sought to restrain some of his actions — like his Homeland Security secretary and chief of staff, John F. Kelly — had been fired, and those who stuck with him had learned much.In a second term, Mr. Trump plans to install a team that will not restrain him.Since much of Mr. Trump’s first-term immigration crackdown was tied up in the courts, the legal environment has tilted in his favor: His four years of judicial appointments left behind federal appellate courts and a Supreme Court that are far more conservative than the courts that heard challenges to his first-term policies.The fight over Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals provides an illustration.DACA is an Obama-era program that shields from deportation and grants work permits to people who were brought unlawfully to the United States as children. Mr. Trump tried to end it, but the Supreme Court blocked him on procedural grounds in June 2020.Mr. Miller said Mr. Trump would try again to end DACA. And the 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court that blocked the last attempt no longer exists: A few months after the DACA ruling, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and Mr. Trump replaced her with a sixth conservative, Justice Amy Coney Barrett.Mr. Trump’s rhetoric has more than kept up with his increasingly extreme agenda on immigration.His stoking of fear and anger toward immigrants — pushing for a border wall and calling Mexicans rapists — fueled his 2016 takeover of the Republican Party. As president, he privately mused about developing a militarized border like Israel’s, asked whether migrants crossing the border could be shot in the legs and wanted a proposed border wall topped with flesh-piercing spikes and painted black to burn migrants’ skin.As he has campaigned for the party’s third straight presidential nomination, his anti-immigrant tone has only grown harsher. In a recent interview with a right-wing website, Mr. Trump claimed without evidence that foreign leaders were deliberately emptying their “insane asylums” to send the patients across America’s southern border as migrants. He said migrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” And at a rally on Wednesday in Florida, he compared them to the fictional serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter, saying, “That’s what’s coming into our country right now.”Mr. Trump had similarly vowed to carry out mass deportations when running for office in 2016, but the government only managed several hundred thousand removals per year under his presidency, on par with other recent administrations. If they get another opportunity, Mr. Trump and his team are determined to achieve annual numbers in the millions.Keeping People OutMigrants wait to be escorted by Border Patrol agents to a processing area in September. Mr. Trump’s stoking of fear and anger toward immigrants fueled his 2016 takeover of the Republican Party. Mark Abramson for The New York TimesMr. Trump’s immigration plan is to pick up where he left off and then go much farther. He would not only revive some of the policies that were criticized as draconian during his presidency, many of which the Biden White House ended, but also expand and toughen them.One example centers on expanding first-term policies aimed at keeping people out of the country. Mr. Trump plans to suspend the nation’s refugee program and once again categorically bar visitors from troubled countries, reinstating a version of his ban on travel from several mostly Muslim-majority countries, which President Biden called discriminatory and ended on his first day in office.Mr. Trump would also use coercive diplomacy to induce other nations to help, including by making cooperation a condition of any other bilateral engagement, Mr. Miller said. For example, a second Trump administration would seek to re-establish an agreement with Mexico that asylum seekers remain there while their claims are processed. (It is not clear that Mexico would agree; a Mexican court has said that deal violated human rights.)Mr. Trump would also push to revive “safe third country” agreements with several nations in Central America, and try to expand them to Africa, Asia and South America. Under such deals, countries agree to take would-be asylum seekers from specific other nations and let them apply for asylum there instead.While such arrangements have traditionally only covered migrants who had previously passed through a third country, federal law does not require that limit and a second Trump administration would seek to make those deals without it, in part as a deterrent to migrants making what the Trump team views as illegitimate asylum claims.At the same time, Mr. Miller said, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would invoke the public health emergency powers law known as Title 42 to again refuse to hear any asylum claims by people arriving at the southern border. The Trump administration had internally discussed that idea early in Mr. Trump’s term, but some cabinet secretaries pushed back, arguing that there was no public health emergency that would legally justify it. The administration ultimately implemented it during the coronavirus pandemic.Saying the idea has since gained acceptance in practice — Mr. Biden initially kept the policy — Mr. Miller said Mr. Trump would invoke Title 42, citing “severe strains of the flu, tuberculosis, scabies, other respiratory illnesses like R.S.V. and so on, or just a general issue of mass migration being a public health threat and conveying a variety of communicable diseases.”Mr. Trump and his aides have not yet said whether they would re-enact one of the most contentious deterrents to unauthorized immigration that he pursued as president: separating children from their parents, which led to trauma among migrants and difficulties in reuniting families. When pressed, Mr. Trump has repeatedly declined to rule out reviving the policy. After an outcry over the practice, Mr. Trump ended it in 2018 and a judge later blocked the government from putting it back into effect.Mass DeportationsFederal immigration-enforcement officers gathered for an arrest operation in May in Pompano Beach, Fla.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesSoon after Mr. Trump announced his 2024 campaign for president last November, he met with Tom Homan, who ran ICE for the first year and a half of the Trump administration and was an early proponent of separating families to deter migrants.In an interview, Mr. Homan recalled that in that meeting, he “agreed to come back” in a second term and would “help to organize and run the largest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”Trump advisers’ vision of abrupt mass deportations would be a recipe for social and economic turmoil, disrupting the housing market and major industries including agriculture and the service sector.Mr. Miller cast such disruption in a favorable light.“Mass deportation will be a labor-market disruption celebrated by American workers, who will now be offered higher wages with better benefits to fill these jobs,” he said. “Americans will also celebrate the fact that our nation’s laws are now being applied equally, and that one select group is no longer magically exempt.”One planned step to overcome the legal and logistical hurdles would be to significantly expand a form of fast-track deportations known as “expedited removal.” It denies undocumented immigrants the opportunity to seek asylum hearings and file appeals, which can take months or years — especially when people are not in custody — and has led to a large backlog. A 1996 law says people can be subject to expedited removal for up to two years after arriving, but to date the executive branch has used it more cautiously, swiftly expelling people picked up near the border soon after crossing.The Trump administration tried to expand the use of expedited removal, but a court blocked it and then the Biden team canceled the expansion. It remains unclear whether the Supreme Court will rule that it is constitutional to use the law against people who have been living for a significant period in the United States and express fear of persecution if sent home.Mr. Trump has also said he would invoke an archaic law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, to expel suspected members of drug cartels and criminal gangs without due process. That law allows for summary deportation of people from countries with which the United States is at war, that have invaded the United States or that have engaged in “predatory incursions.”Tom Homan, who ran ICE for the first year and a half of the Trump administration, said he told Mr. Trump he would “help to organize and run the largest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesThe Supreme Court has upheld past uses of that law in wartime. But its text seems to require a link to the actions of a foreign government, so it is not clear whether the justices will allow a president to stretch it to encompass drug cartel activity.More broadly, Mr. Miller said a new Trump administration would shift from the ICE practice of arresting specific people to carrying out workplace raids and other sweeps in public places aimed at arresting scores of unauthorized immigrants at once. While every administration has used detention facilities, because of the magnitude of deportations being contemplated, the Trump team plans to build “vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers” for migrants waiting to be flown to other countries, Mr. Miller said. Such an undertaking would be fast-tracked, he said, “by bringing in the right kinds of attorneys and the right kinds of policy thinkers” — taking what is typically a methodical process “and making it radically more quick and efficient.”Mr. Miller said the new camps would likely be built “on open land in Texas near the border.” He said the military would construct them under the authority and control of the Department of Homeland Security. While he cautioned that there were no specific blueprints yet, he said the camps would look professional and similar to other facilities for migrants that have been built near the border.The use of these camps, he said, would likely be focused more on single adults because the government cannot indefinitely hold children under a longstanding court order known as the Flores settlement. So any families brought to the facilities would have to be moved in and out more quickly, Mr. Miller said.The Trump administration tried to overturn the Flores settlement, but the Supreme Court did not resolve the matter before Mr. Trump’s term ended. Mr. Miller said the Trump team would try again.To increase the number of agents available for ICE sweeps, Mr. Miller said, officials from other federal law enforcement agencies would be temporarily reassigned, and state National Guard troops and local police officers, at least from willing Republican-led states, would be deputized for immigration control efforts.While a law known as the Posse Comitatus Act generally forbids the use of the armed forces for law enforcement purposes, another law called the Insurrection Act creates an exception. Mr. Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act at the border, enabling the use of federal troops to apprehend migrants, Mr. Miller said.“Bottom line,” he said, “President Trump will do whatever it takes.”Zolan Kanno-Youngs More

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      What We Learned About Trump’s Policies in Contentious Town Hall

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      Former President Donald J. Trump staked out positions on several major issues, including separating migrant children from their parents and pardoning Jan. 6 rioters.Among the barrage of falsehoods and bluster, former President Donald J. Trump laid markers down on several major and divisive issues at the CNN town-hall meeting on Wednesday night.Mr. Trump spoke of several actions he might take if re-elected, at times with a specificity he often dodges in speeches and friendlier interviews. He also revealed much about his thinking on positions that are likely to roil his party, including the war in Ukraine and access to abortion.Here’s a look at some of what Mr. Trump said about policy:Reconsidering migrant family separationsWhen asked if he would return to a policy of separating migrant children from their parents when they arrive at the border, Mr. Trump did not rule it out.“Well, when you have that policy, people don’t come,” he said. “If a family hears that they’re going to be separated, they love their family, they don’t come.”Mr. Trump acknowledged that the policy “sounds harsh” but claimed that the situation warranted it.Some 5,500 foreign-born children, and hundreds of U.S. citizens, are known to have been separated from their parents under the Trump administration’s so-called zero tolerance policy, which jailed and criminally charged migrant parents for crossing the border without authorization.Mr. Trump abandoned the policy after an international outcry in 2018.President Biden formed a commission to reunite parents with their children, some of whom have spent years in foster care. He also vowed not to separate families at the border and quickly ended the detention of families, though the administration is considering new efforts such as curfews and the use of more GPS monitors for adults as they see more surges of families arriving at the border.Pardons for the Jan. 6 riotersWhen asked if he had any regrets about his actions leading up to the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Trump insisted that he did nothing wrong and sympathized with his supporters who took part.A retired lawyer in the audience asked Mr. Trump if he would issue pardons to those rioters who were convicted of federal offenses.“I am inclined to pardon many of them,” Mr. Trump said. “I can’t say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control.”More than 900 people have been criminally charged as part of the assault on the Capitol, including four members of the far-right group the Proud Boys, who were convicted this month of sedition.Mr. Trump did not rule out pardons for them, saying he would have to review their individual circumstances.“I don’t know,” he said. “I’d have to look at their case, but I will say in Washington, D.C., you cannot get a fair trial, you cannot. Just like in New York City, you can’t get a fair trial either.”Dodging on a national abortion banMr. Trump repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether he would sign a federal abortion ban if Republicans managed to steer one through the divided Congress. He also would not say how many weeks into a pregnancy he might consider banning an abortion.“I’m looking at a solution that’s going to work,” he said. “Very complex issue for the country. You have people on both sides of an issue, but we are now in a very strong position. Pro-life people are in a strong position to make a deal that’s going to be good and going to be satisfactory for them.”Mr. Trump appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court during his presidency, paving the way for the court to eliminate the federal right to an abortion. But he has since resisted being drawn into the debate, and has privately worried about political backlash.Characterizing his views on abortion restrictions as similar to President Ronald Reagan’s, Mr. Trump said that he believed in exceptions for rape, for incest and to save the life of a mother.Not taking Ukraine’s sideMr. Trump skirted the issue when asked multiple times if he wanted Ukraine to win the war after being invaded last year by Russia.“I don’t think in terms of winning and losing,” he said. “I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people.”The former president claimed he would bring the war to an end in 24 hours, if he returned to office, but did not specifically say what he would do to broker a peace.He would not call President Vladimir Putin of Russia a war criminal, as Mr. Biden has, saying that doing so would make it more difficult to end the hostilities between the two nations.Mr. Trump did say Mr. Putin had “made a bad mistake” by invading Ukraine.Threatening default on U.S. debtMr. Trump suggested on Wednesday night that Republicans in Congress should hold fast against raising the federal debt ceiling without budget cuts, even if it means the country defaults on its debt.“I say to the Republicans out there — congressmen, senators — if they don’t give you massive cuts, you’re going to have to do a default,” he said.A growing list of economists and analysts have warned about the potential consequences if Congress does not raise the borrowing limit before the government can no longer pay its bills, including huge job losses, a recession and a nosedive on Wall Street.Mr. Trump predicted that Democrats would “absolutely cave” when confronted with the choice between accepting spending cuts and defaulting. Still, when asked to clarify if he would endorse a default, he said he would.“We might as well do it now because you’ll do it later,” he said.When Ms. Collins pointed out that Mr. Trump had once said when he was president that using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge could not happen, he said that circumstances had changed.“Because now I’m not president,” he said.The Big Lie 2.0?On a night when he doubled and tripled down on his false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, Mr. Trump refused to say unconditionally that he would accept the results of next year’s election should he become the Republican presidential nominee.“If I think it’s an honest election, I would be honored to,” he said.Mr. Trump spent much of the interview re-litigating his defeat and closed with a caveat about the next election.“If it’s an honest election, correct, I will,” he said of accepting the results.Alyce McFadden More

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      Trump Town Hall Shows His Second-Term Plan: Shattering Even More Norms

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      In little over an hour, Donald J. Trump suggested the United States should default on its debts for the first time in history, injected doubt over the country’s commitment to defending Ukraine from Russia’s invasion, dangled pardons for most of the Capitol rioters convicted of crimes, and refused to say he would abide by the results of the next presidential election.The second-term vision Mr. Trump sketched out at a CNN town-hall event on Wednesday would represent a sharp departure from core American values that have been at the bedrock of the nation for decades: its creditworthiness, its credibility with international allies and its adherence to the rule of law at home.Mr. Trump’s provocations were hardly shocking. His time in office was often defined by a the-rules-don’t-apply-to-me approach to governance and a lack of interest in upholding the post-World War II national security order, and at 76 he is not bound to change much.But his performance nonetheless signaled an escalation of his bid to bend the government to his wishes as he runs again for the White House, only this time with a greater command of the Republican Party’s pressure points and a plan to demolish the federal bureaucracy.The televised event crystallized that the version of Mr. Trump who could return to office in 2025 — vowing to be a vehicle of “retribution” — is likely to govern as he did in 2020. In that final year of his presidency, Mr. Trump cleared out people perceived as disloyal and promoted those who would fully indulge his instincts — things he did not always do during the first three years of his administration, when his establishmentarian advisers often talked him out of drastic policy changes.“From my perspective, there was an evolution of Donald Trump over his four years, with 2020 I think being the most dramatic example of him — the real him,” said Mark T. Esper, who served as Mr. Trump’s defense secretary. “And I suspect that would be his starting point if he were to win office in 2024.”Mr. Trump’s CNN performance reinforced concerns “that a return of Trump to the White House would be a return to the chaos,” said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware. CNNIn a statement, Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Mr. Trump, dismissed criticisms of the former president, who he said “spoke directly to Americans suffering from the Biden decline and President Trump’s desire to bring about security and economic prosperity on Day 1.” He added, “Understandably, this vision is not shared by the failed warmongers, political losers and career bureaucratic hacks — many of whom he fired or defeated — who have created all of America’s problems.”At the town-hall event, Mr. Trump almost cavalierly floated ideas that would reshape the nation’s standing in the world, vowing to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours and declining to commit to supporting the country, an American ally that has relied on billions of dollars in aid to hold off the Russian onslaught.“Do you want Ukraine to win this war?” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pressed.Mr. Trump evaded.“I don’t think in terms of winning and losing,” he replied, adding that he was focused on winding down the conflict. “I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people.” He did not mention that the majority of the killing has been committed by Russia.Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, a Democrat who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee and is close to President Biden, said there were fears internationally of Mr. Trump’s return.“His performance last night just reinforced what so many of our allies and partners have told me concerns them over the past two years — that a return of Trump to the White House would be a return to the chaos,” he said.Some Republican elected officials who are skeptical of U.S. aid to Ukraine praised Mr. Trump’s performance. Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio called his Ukraine answer “real statesmanship.”Mr. Miller argued that Mr. Trump had an “entire term with no new wars, and he’s ready to do it again.”In New Hampshire, the audience of Republicans lapped up Mr. Trump’s one-liners and slew of insults — to Ms. Collins (a “nasty person,” he jeered, echoing his old attack on Hillary Clinton), to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to E. Jean Carroll, the woman whom a jury this week found Mr. Trump liable of sexually abusing and defaming. And the crowd expressed no dissent as he again tried to rewrite the history of Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn his election loss.“It was a beautiful day,” Mr. Trump said.If he becomes president again, he said, he would “most likely” pardon “a large portion” of his supporters who were convicted over their actions on Jan. 6. “They were there with love in their heart,” he said of the crowd, which he beamed had been the “largest” of his career.“You see what you’re going to get, which is a presidency untethered to the truth and untethered to the constitutional order,” said Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the Republican Party’s most prominent Trump critic remaining on Capitol Hill. “The idea that people who’ve been convicted of crimes are all going to be pardoned, or for the most part pardoned, is quite a departure from the principles of the Constitution and of our party.”Mr. Trump also embraced the possibility of defaulting in the debt-ceiling standoff between President Biden and congressional Republicans, an act that economists say could spell catastrophe for the global economy.“You might as well do it now because you’ll do it later, because we have to save this country,” Mr. Trump said. “Our country is dying.”Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a Republican who is running a long-shot campaign for president in 2024, said Mr. Trump’s potential return to the White House posed an “enormous” risk for the nation.“He has shown such a disrespect for our institutions of government that are critical to our democracy,” Mr. Hutchinson said, adding that he had been particularly unnerved by the talk of defaulting. “He talked like it was OK for the United States to default on the debt. And that’s like putting his past business practices of using bankruptcy as a tool and applying that to the government.”Despite such warnings from old-guard Republicans, the cheers from the conservative crowd in New Hampshire during the CNN event were an audible reminder of Mr. Trump’s sizable lead in Republican primary polls.Ukrainian troops firing on Russian positions. Mr. Trump claimed he could end the war in 24 hours.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesKarl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush’s two presidential victories, said in an interview that “for true believers and ardent supporters, it was a boffo performance” by Mr. Trump. But he said that other Republicans would now be forced to answer for “a big pile of noxious material on their doorsteps.”“Do other Republicans believe that rioters who attacked police, broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6 and, in some cases, attempted to overthrow the government should be pardoned?” Mr. Rove asked. “Do other Republicans agree that it doesn’t matter if the United States government defaults on its debt? Do other Republicans not care who wins in Ukraine?”One of the most controversial policies of Mr. Trump’s presidency was the forced separation of migrant parents from their children at the southern border, which Mr. Trump reversed himself on in June 2018 after a huge backlash.But during the town hall on Wednesday, Mr. Trump suggested he would revive it. “Well, when you have that policy, people don’t come,” he said. “If a family hears they’re going to be separated, they love their family, they don’t come.”Casual observers might be inclined, as some did in 2016, to take Mr. Trump’s most extreme statements, such as his casual embrace of allowing the nation to default, seriously but not literally.But underneath Mr. Trump’s loose talk are detailed plans to bulldoze the federal civil service. These proposals have been incubating for more than two years within a network of well-funded and Trump-connected outside groups.A reunion at the southern border. Mr. Trump suggested he might reinstate his family separation policy for migrants.Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesIn the final, chaotic weeks of the 2020 election, Mr. Trump’s lawyers, having crafted a novel legal theory in strict secrecy, released an executive order known as Schedule F that aimed to wipe out most employment protections against firing for tens of thousands of federal workers.Mr. Trump ran out of time to carry out that plan. But a constellation of conservative groups has been preparing to revive the effort if he regains the presidency in 2025.Pressed by Ms. Collins, Mr. Trump would not say he was willing to accept the 2024 results.Former Representative Liz Cheney, who lost her Republican primary bid for re-election after helping lead the House’s investigation into Jan. 6, said of the Trump town hall, “Virtually everything Donald Trump says enhances the case against him.”“Donald Trump made clear yet again that he fully intended to corruptly obstruct Congress’s official proceeding to count electoral votes in order to overturn the 2020 election,” said Ms. Cheney, who has made opposing Mr. Trump’s return to power her top political priority since her defeat last year. “He says what happened on Jan. 6 was justified, and he celebrates those who attacked our Capitol.”On Wednesday, Mr. Trump also denounced his former vice president, Mike Pence, for upholding the 2020 election results and waved off the suggestion that Mr. Pence had been at risk on Jan. 6, even though the Secret Service tried to evacuate him from the Capitol.“I don’t think he was in any danger,” Mr. Trump said.Marc Short, who was with Mr. Pence that day as his chief of staff, called out Mr. Trump’s double standard in defending violence by his supporters while claiming to broadly stand for law and order.“Many of us called for the prosecution of B.L.M. rioters when they destroyed private businesses,” Mr. Short said, referring to Black Lives Matter supporters. “It’s hard to see how there’s a different threshold when rioters injure law enforcement, threaten public officials and loot the Capitol.” More

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      Where Biden’s Justice Department Isn’t Breaking From Trump

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      Democratic gripes are increasing, as some critics worry that the department is rubber-stamping Trump-era policies.The political news cycle hit home in rare fashion on Monday as the attorney general, Merrick B. Garland, met with newsroom leaders from The Times, CNN and The Washington Post to discuss how the administration was responding to revelations that Donald J. Trump’s Department of Justice had secretly sought information on reporters and their sources.When a Justice Department gets into the business of seizing reporters’ phone records and trying to track down leakers, while putting gag orders on the news organizations whose records it’s seizing, it’s hard not to wonder about the health of the First Amendment.So with the revelations now public, Mr. Garland vowed to act. Speaking to members of the Senate Appropriations Committee at a budget hearing last week, he pledged that he would institute new policies that were “the most protective of journalists’ ability to do their jobs in history.”In Monday’s meeting, the leaders of the news organizations pushed Mr. Garland to pursue accountability for the administration officials who had worked to target journalists and whistle-blowers; Mr. Garland’s responses were kept off the record.But legal watchdogs and advocates of criminal justice reform say this is far from the only area of concern. They are pointing to a few major areas in which Mr. Garland’s Justice Department has elected to defend Trump-era policies, particularly those orchestrated by former Attorney General William P. Barr.Mr. Garland has stepped up enforcement of civil rights laws, and he is leading investigations into some major municipal police departments suspected of systematic misconduct. He announced last week that he would take aggressive steps to protect voting rights.But on a range of other issues, there are gripes coming from within the president’s own party. Some critics have expressed worry that his Department of Justice was rubber-stamping policies that sought to expand the president’s legal immunities, turn back progressive action on racial justice and restrict immigrants’ ability to enter the country legally.Trump, E. Jean Carroll and presidential protectionsDuring Mr. Trump’s presidency, Mr. Barr sought to help Mr. Trump try to fight off a sexual assault accusation from the journalist and advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.After she publicly made the allegation, in 2019, Mr. Trump said in an interview from the Oval Office that Ms. Carroll was “not my type,” and that he’d never assaulted her. She then filed suit, accusing him of slandering her.Mr. Barr argued in court that Mr. Trump had been acting as an employee of the federal government when he made the comments, and was therefore shielded from charges of slander and libel.The case was still pending when President Biden took office. And this month, Mr. Garland’s Justice Department lamented Mr. Trump’s “crude and disrespectful” remarks, but it said that his administration had been right to argue that he could not be sued over them.Mueller’s findings and the ‘Barr memo’Prominent Democrats had also urged Mr. Garland not to fight a federal judge’s ruling demanding that a classified report that Mr. Barr had requested be made public. Known as the “Barr memo,” the document argues that he should tell the public that Mr. Trump’s efforts to impede the Russia investigation — as lain out in the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III — cannot be charged as obstruction of justice, and offers legal analysis in support of that claim.Mr. Trump’s foes scored a major victory last month, when, in a blistering decision, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court in Washington ordered the memo to be made public, accusing the Trump administration of “disingenuous” reasoning. In a public letter last month, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee asked Mr. Garland not to appeal Judge Jackson’s decision, “in order to help rebuild the nation’s trust” in the Justice Department.But Mr. Garland soon announced that he would indeed appeal it, seeking to keep secret most of the memo — the portion laying out the legal analysis for why none of potential obstruction episodes in the Mueller report rose to a chargeable crime — and citing “the irreparable harm that would be caused by the release of the redacted portions of the document.”Much like Barack Obama’s choice, in 2009, not to systematically pursue accountability for members of the Bush administration over their invasive surveillance policies, or the mistreatment of military prisoners during the war on terror, the Biden administration’s move on the Barr memo was seen as an attempt to protect the narrow institutional interests of the Justice Department and to move on.Gun prosecutions in D.C.Many proponents of racial justice were dismayed this spring when Mr. Garland’s Justice Department announced it would continue Mr. Trump’s policy of using the federal courts to prosecute gun crimes in the District of Columbia, not the city’s own justice system.That policy, enacted in 2019, had reversed decades of tradition in the nation’s capital, where the lead prosecutor is a federal appointee but most crimes are typically tried in city courts.At a moment when the D.C. Council had been passing laws to undo the effects of mass incarceration, the Trump administration’s move disproportionately affected African-American men, as Black people account for a vast majority of those brought up on gun charges in the nation’s capital. Average sentences for these crimes are roughly twice as high in the federal court system.“That’s why it’s so surprising that the administration stuck with it: because this is an issue that touches on mass incarceration, racial injustice and D.C. rights,” Andrew Crespo, a Harvard Law School professor who has been involved in the effort to roll back the Trump policy, said in an interview.A group of 87 former federal prosecutors signed a letter in May urging the Justice Department to abandon the practice, but so far it hasn’t changed its position.Immigration policiesMr. Garland’s Justice Department has also continued some Trump policies that prevent immigrants trying to enter the U.S. from having access to certain legal rights.One policy, which was enacted at the end of Mr. Trump’s presidency by the department’s immigration review office, concentrates decision-making power underneath a political appointee and can prevent immigrants seeking to remain in the U.S. from presenting certain evidence that could help them from being deported.Lawyers for Mr. Garland’s Justice Department have repeatedly argued to uphold the rule, resisting lawsuits from proponents of immigration rights in two separate district courts.Biden administration lawyers have also argued in court on behalf of a policy that prevents immigrants with temporary protected status from gaining green cards with the support of their employer. The Biden administration has also sought to end protected status for hundreds of thousands of people from El Salvador and other countries.Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, pointed to the fact that Mr. Garland’s Justice Department had agreed to defend former members of the Trump administration, including Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller, in lawsuits seeking damages for harm caused by the family-separation policy.It is customary for former federal officials to have access to Justice Department representation, but Mr. Gelernt said that the family-separation policy went beyond the pale, and suggested a need to re-examine old precedent where some of the Trump administration’s policies are concerned.“For the Biden D.O.J. to choose to represent the people who did the family-separation practice is deeply troubling,” he said. A voting rights coalition urges corporations to stop funding ALEC, the conservative group.A coalition of more than 300 voting rights groups, civil rights advocates and labor leaders has written a letter to multiple major corporations in the U.S. demanding that they cease their financial support of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, an influential conservative group funded by businesses.The three-page letter accuses the group of engaging in partisan gerrymandering and of playing a central role in the crafting of legislation in states across the country that would introduce a raft of new voting restrictions.“Your continued financial support of ALEC is an active endorsement of these efforts to create more barriers to the freedom to vote and weaken representation for the American people in government,” the letter states. “Intended or not, the money your company is contributing to ALEC helps fund this modern Jim Crow effort.”The letter comes as multiple groups seeking to slow the attack on access to the ballot have sought to pressure major businesses to take a more proactive role in pushing back on new voting laws. In Georgia, a coalition of faith leaders called for a boycott of Home Depot after it did not actively oppose the state’s new voting law.But even as some businesses have spoken up, it has rarely had a significant impact. A broad coalition of major corporations last month called on Texas to expand voting access, only to see the state’s Legislature continue to work toward a final bill of voting restrictions.The letter on Monday focusing on funding for ALEC, a regular target of liberal groups, signals a broadening of the activism aimed at weakening or halting new voting bills, taking the battle beyond state legislatures and members of Congress and to the broader ecosystem that has been powering the monthslong push to enact new voting laws.On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More