Iowa Rep. Steve King said President-elect Trump needs to revoke all of President Obama’s protections for people who were brought to the country illegally as children, and not back down on building a border wall.
Speaking on CNN Thursday, the GOP lawmaker said he’s worried about waffling from Republican lawmakers and Trump over whether the proposed border wall needs to be an actual wall, instead of a fence or a sort of surveillance zone, and whether so-called Dreamers should stay in the country. He said a harder line is needed.
“If I listen to [Trump’s] campaign promises, I would expect on his first day he would cancel all of the [Deferred Action for Parents of Americans] and [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] documents out there that President Obama unconstitutionally issued,” King said, referring to executive orders issued by Obama that allowed the children of illegal immigrants, and their parents, to stay in the country and work.
Trump said in an interview with Time that Dreamers who have been in the school system and been law-abiding citizens might be allowed to stay in the country when he’s president. But King said that would be against the law.
“That is the law and if he’s going to change that, he’s gotta come to Congress and ask us to change it,” King said.
King also advocated for an even more intense wall along the southern border than Trump has so far proposed. While Trump has promised a “big, beautiful wall,” King wants a system similar to the Berlin Wall that blocked off the two sides of the German capital during the Cold War.
“I’m calling upon President-elect Trump to not just settle upon a wall,” King said. “Let’s build a fence, a wall and then a fence so we create two no-man’s lands. That way when we pick people up there, they don’t have an excuse. They weren’t out there picking mushrooms, they were trying to illegally enter the United States.”
Trump’s pick for leading the Department of Homeland Security, retired Gen. John Kelly, would be an ideal choice to lead the construction of the wall, King said.
King said Kelly is an inspiring military leader, and said Kelly will bring “law and order” to the department and would figure out how to build the wall if Trump tells him to.
“I don’t know if John Kelly will figure out how to make the Mexicans pay for it, but he’ll do all the rest,” King said.
