Democratic strategist Krishanti Vignarajah told Hill.TV’s “Rising” on Tuesday that she fears that the 2020 presidential campaign could end up directing President Trump’s immigration policy.
“The fear that we have is that a lot of what’s going to be directing policy in the next couple of years is the impending election,” Vignarajah, a former aide to former first lady Michelle Obama and the CEO of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, told hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton.
Trump is reportedly seeking to firm up his administration’s hard-line stance on immigration issues after campaigning on such policies in his 2016 run.
NBC News reported this week that outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned because of Trump’s renewed push to resume a policy that resulted in the separation of migrant children from families that illegally crossed at the U.S. border with Mexico.
“The courts have already weighed in time and time again to make clear that this is inconsistent with U.S. law,” Vignarajah said. “Family separation was probably the most unpopular policy across the board [among] Republicans, Democrats and [independents].”
“What we’re seeing what’s happening with personnel is disconcerting because it’s the policies that need to change, not the personnel,” she said.
— Julia Manchester
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