By Mica Rosenberg and Julia Edwards Ainsley
NEW
YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An architect of anti-immigration efforts
who says he is advising President-elect Donald Trump said the new
administration could push ahead rapidly on construction of a U.S.-Mexico
border wall without seeking immediate congressional approval.
Kansas
Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped write tough immigration laws
in Arizona and elsewhere, said in an interview that Trump's policy
advisers had also discussed drafting a proposal for his consideration to
reinstate a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries.
Kobach,
who media reports say is a key member of Trump's transition team, said
he had participated in regular conference calls with about a dozen Trump
immigration advisers for the past two to three months.
Trump's
transition team did not respond to requests for confirmation of
Kobach's role. The president-elect has not committed to following any
specific recommendations from advisory groups.
Trump,
who scored an upset victory last week over Democrat Hillary Clinton,
made building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border a central issue of his
campaign and has pledged to step up immigration enforcement against the
country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. He has also said he
supports “extreme vetting” of Muslims entering the United States as a
national security measure.
Kobach
told Reuters last Friday that the immigration group had discussed
drafting executive orders for the president-elect's review "so that
Trump and the Department of Homeland Security hit the ground running."
To
implement Trump's call for "extreme vetting" of some Muslim immigrants,
Kobach said the immigration policy group could recommend the
reinstatement of a national registry of immigrants and visitors who
enter the United States on visas from countries where extremist
organizations are active.
Kobach
helped design the program, known as the National Security Entry-Exit
Registration System, while serving in Republican President George W.
Bush's Department of Justice after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the
United States by al Qaeda militants.
Under
NSEERS, people from countries deemed "higher risk" were required to
undergo interrogations and fingerprinting on entering the United States.
Some non-citizen male U.S. residents over the age of 16 from countries
with active militant threats were required to register in person at
government offices and periodically check in.
NSEERS
was abandoned in 2011 after it was deemed redundant by the Department
of Homeland Security and criticized by civil rights groups for unfairly
targeting immigrants from Muslim- majority nations.
Kobach
said the immigration advisers were also looking at how the Homeland
Security Department could move rapidly on border wall construction
without approval from Congress by reappropriating existing funds in the
current budget. He acknowledged "that future fiscal years will require
additional appropriations."
Congress,
which is controlled by Trump's fellow Republicans, could object to
redirecting DHS funds designated for other purposes.
HELPED DRAFT TOUGH ARIZONA LAW
Kobach
has worked with allies across the United States on drafting laws and
pursuing legal actions to crack down on illegal immigration.
In
2010, he helped draft an Arizona law that required state and local
officials to check the immigration status of individuals stopped by
police. Parts of the law, which was fiercely opposed by Hispanic and
civil rights groups, were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011.
Kobach
was also the architect of a 2013 Kansas law requiring voters to provide
proof-of-citizenship documents, such as birth certificates or U.S.
passports, when registering for the first time. A U.S. appeals court
blocked that law after challenges from civil rights groups.
Kobach
said in the interview he believed that illegal immigrants in some cases
should be deported before a conviction if they have been charged with a
violent crime. Trump said in an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" that
aired on Sunday that once he took office, he would remove immigrants
with criminal records who are in the country illegally.
Kobach
said the immigration group had also discussed ways of overturning
President Barack Obama's 2012 executive action that has granted
temporary deportation relief and work permits to more than 700,000
undocumented people or "dreamers" who came to the United States as
children of illegal immigrants.U.S. Deportations Over Time
Source:
DHS - Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. Show details
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