Trump launches immigration crackdown

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump put force behind his central campaign pledge to toughen immigration enforcement, signing orders Wednesday to start construction of a border wall, expand authority to deport thousands, increase the number of detention cells and punish cities and states that refuse to cooperate.

Some of the actions could add up to billions of dollars and require help from a Republican-led Congress friendly toward Trump's immigration agenda. Others will invite lawsuits from a vast army of opponents.

One laying down a marker is the American Civil Liberties Union.

'Any attempt from the federal government to commandeer state and local governments into carrying out federal policies will violate the 10th Amendment, and attempts to coerce local entities into action by withholding funds violates the Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution.” said a statement from the ACLU of Iowa. 'The law is clear on this, and President Trump is out of line.”

Yet in total, Trump's orders represent a major shift in the nation's approach to immigration.

In addition to Wednesday's orders, he is considering a flurry of additional ones that would temporarily ban all new refugees and narrow the openings for people traveling from Muslim-dominated countries.

'A nation without borders is not a nation,” Trump said at the Department of Homeland Security. 'Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders.”

Immigration rights groups and politicians representing liberal localities known as sanctuary cities and states vowed resistance in Congress, local legislative bodies and in court inviting what is likely to be years of litigation.

'Directing a deportation force to break up immigrant families contributing to our country is not a show of strength,” Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said.

California receives as much as $105 billion a year in federal dollars, though it's unclear how much of that could be in jeopardy as a result of Trump's orders, which give power to the attorney general and Homeland Security secretary to withhold grants.

Trump's sanctuary city order comes just over a week since the Iowa City Council passed a resolution saying its law enforcement resources would not be used in federal immigration enforcement efforts.

But the council didn't go so far as to declare Iowa City a sanctuary.

Wednesday, City Attorney Eleanor Dilkes said the city's new resolution is not in violation of Trump's order.

It explicitly does not prohibit or restrict an official or entity from reporting or receiving information on someone's immigration status.

'There's no law that the city of Iowa City isn't following, and that's made clear in the resolution,” Dilkes said.

In addition to penalizing cities and states that refuse to work with immigration authorities, Trump restored the Secure Communities program in which immigration officers are notified each time an immigrant who has entered the country illegally is booked into a local jail.

The most immediate impact of Trump's actions might be a vast increase in the number of people subject to detention and deportation.

Trump's orders call for an expansion of detention facilities holding asylum seekers and others awaiting hearings. It would end so-called catch-and-release practices that allow those migrants to remain at large if there is crowding or if they are mothers with children, unaccompanied minors or face a credible fear of persecution from their home countries.

Trump's orders also would put a greater emphasis on deporting not only those convicted of crimes, but also people in the country illegally who were charged with crimes not yet adjudicated, those who receive an improper welfare benefit and even those who have not been charged but are believed to have committed 'a chargeable criminal offense.”

'We are going to get them out, and we're going to get them out fast,” Trump said.

A small group of demonstrators gathered Wednesday evening in Cedar Rapids to make clear they don't agree with Trump's rhetoric.

Leeann Oelrich, an education program coordinator at the Catherine McAuley Center, which holds English language classes for refugees, said many of the students in her classes have been concerned about claims of mass deportation.

'We have people that are concerned about the cultural backlash more than anything, about the hate this might foster,” she said.

Though Congress seems likely to approve Trump's call to spend more on agents and holding cells, the border wall - his signature promise - could be a tougher sell. He directed federal workers to start construction, allowing Homeland Security to redirect about $175 million already set aside for upgrading buildings and adding new equipment.

But a wall all along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico would cost billions. Trump has said the United States would pay for it, while insisting it eventually would be reimbursed by Mexico.

'There will be a payment,” Trump told ABC News. 'It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form.”

Mexico officials said that won't happen.

Madison Arnold and Makayla Tendall of The Gazette and the Tribune Washington Bureau contributed to this report.