The Wall
To crack down on cities that shield illegal immigrants, Donald Trump has signed the executive order to build the border wall, still insisting that Mexico should pay for it. The wall is expected to be around 3,200 kilometre long. In an interview with ABC news in America, Donald Trump said the construction of the wall will start withing months and the planning for it starts immediately. He also insisted that Mexico will pay “100 per cent” of the costs related to it.
“I’m just telling you there will be a payment. It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form. What I’m doing is good for the United States. It’s also going to be good for Mexico. We want to have a very stable, very solid Mexico.”
Last year the cost of the wall was put around $8 billion.
This is one of the two executive orders that Donald Trump has signed to boost border security and to crack down on illegal immigrants living in United States.
Temporary ban on refugees
The second order is to strip off funding from the so-called “sanctuary cities” which do not arrest or detain illegal immigrants. In cities like San Francisco, local officials often refused to cooperate with the federal authorities on actions against illegal immigrants. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said,
“The American people are no longer going to have to be forced to subsidise this disregard for our laws.”
The George W Bush-era program was eventually abandoned by the Obama administration due to criticism that many undocumented migrants who had committed minor or no crimes at all were being swept up in the program.
The President said,
“A nation without borders is not a nation. Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders, gets back its borders. I just signed two executive orders that will save thousands of lives, millions of jobs and billions and billions of dollars.”
Trump is also expected to sign executive orders to put a temporary ban on refugees and suspension of visas for citizens of Syria and six other Middle Eastern and African countries. Trump tweeted on Wednesday that he had a “big day” planned for national security. The order will block visas issued to anyone from Syria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Anti-abortion laws
On Monday, Donald Trump also signed an anti-abortion executive order that will have far reaching consequences for women’s reproductive health access worldwide. He also reinstated a global gag rule that band US-funding groups around the world from providing information about abortion. The restriction prohibits foreign non-governmental organizations that receive US family planning assistance to pay for things including contraceptives – from providing abortion services, information, counseling or referrals – even of the organization uses their own funds for the service. They are also banned from engaging in advocacy to promote abortion. Organizations risk losing their funding if they do not follow the order.
Voter fraud investigation
Donald Trump also revealed that he would be asking for a major investigation into voter fraud, promising to strengthen voting procedures. It is said that Donald trump plans to open an investigation into voter fraud to understand where the problem exists and how deep it goes. Mr. Trump called for an investigation into unsubstantiated claims he has made repeatedly about a rigged voting system.
In particular, he singled out “bigger state” where the trump campaign “didn’t compete” in the election. However there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud occurring in November’s elections.
