President Trump chided Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday by sharing a quote of the New York Democrat’s from nearly a decade ago, in which he said that legal immigrants should be favored over those who entered the U.S. illegally.
“‘People who enter the United States without our permission are illegal aliens and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who entered the U.S. legally.’ Chuck Schumer in 2009, before he went left and haywire! @foxandfriends,” Trump wrote on Twitter Wednesday morning.
“People who enter the United States without our permission are illegal aliens and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who entered the U.S. legally.” Chuck Schumer in 2009, before he went left and haywire! @foxandfriends
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2018
“Fox & Friends” played that very clip at around 7:30 a.m. ET and has been pushed by the Republican National Committee.
In June, Schumer said he would not support a Republican-backed proposal that would have ended family separations at the border because Trump had the ability to stop the separations, but was calling on Congress to do so.
[Chuck Schumer to Trump: Either reverse family separation policy, or ‘own up to it’]
The White House said it wanted lawmakers to act because the president did not have the legal ability to legislate and was looking for a permanent fix to the Flores Settlement, a court decision that states minors cannot be held in Department of Homeland Security custody for more than 20 days. That decision made it impossible for families whose adults were being referred for prosecution for illegal entry to be kept together through that process.
Schumer maintained the Trump administration created the problem by choosing to refer all illegal entrants for prosecution instead of making families the exception.
Trump said families are arriving illegally at the border in high numbers because they intend to exploit the “loopholes” in the system.
Days after Schumer’s mid-June comment, Trump took executive action and ordered families not to be separated. Within hours of the order, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan instructed his employees to immediately stop carrying out the zero-tolerance policy in regards to families.
