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Speaking to Congress, Trump Calls for Office to Track Immigrant Crimes

HeadlineMar 01, 2017

During President Trump’s speech to the joint session of Congress last night, he announced plans to create a new office called VOICE—that’s Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement. Trump has previously directed the Department of Homeland Security to publish a list of crimes committed by immigrants—which some historians have compared to Germany’s Nazi-era policy of publishing lists of crimes committed by Jews. Trump invited family members of people killed by undocumented immigrants to his speech last night. Democrats, meanwhile, gave their tickets away to immigrants, including 16-year-old Angel Rayos-García and 14-year-old Jacqueline Rayos-García, whose mother Guadalupe was deported back to Mexico earlier this year, after she went to a routine ICE check-in. During Trump’s speech, he reiterated his campaign promises to crack down on immigration and immigrants living in the United States.

President Donald Trump: “My administration has answered the pleas of the American people for immigration enforcement and border security. By finally enforcing our immigration laws, we will raise wages, help the unemployed, save billions and billions of dollars and make our communities safer for everyone.”

But only hours earlier, Trump reportedly suggested during a meeting with TV anchors at the White House that he might be open to a form of immigration bill that would grant legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants. We’ll have more on Trump’s speech and immigration policies later in the broadcast.

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