US President Donald Trump has advocated for depriving undocumented immigrants of their due-process rights, arguing that people who cross the border into the country illegally were invaders and must immediately be deported without trial or an appearance before a judge.
In a series of tweets on Sunday, Trump described immigrants as invaders, called US immigration laws "a mockery" and wrote that they must be changed to take away legal rights from undocumented migrants, reports The Washington Post.
"We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country," Trump wrote.
"When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came.
"Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order. Most children come without parents."
The President continued in a second tweet: "Our Immigration policy, laughed at all over the world, is very unfair to all of those people who have gone through the system legally and are waiting on line for years!
"Immigration must be based on merit - we need people who will help to Make America Great Again!"
Trump also exhorted congressional Democrats to "fix the laws", arguing that "we need strength and security at the Border! Cannot accept all of the people trying to break into our Country".
The President had signed an executive order last week aimed at keeping some families together at the border after his administration faced calls to stop separating children from parents.
But Sunday's remarks have led to confusion and urmoil in Congress as the House prepares to vote on a sweeping immigration bill this week.
The legislation would provide $25 billion for Trump's long-sought border wall, limit legal immigration and give young undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.
Democrats and immigrant rights advocates sought to shame Trump for saying he wants to deny illegal immigrants their due-process rights, The Washington Post reported.
"America rules by law," tweeted Virginia Democrat Gerald E. Connolly, "not by presidential diktat."
Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project, said: "What President Trump has suggested here is both illegal and unconstitutional. Any official who has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws should disavow it unequivocally."
On Saturday night, a Department of Homeland Security statement said 522 children out of more than 2,500 had already been reunited.
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