Go back where you came from.
President Donald Trump's tweet on Sunday did more than take a shot at four Democratic lawmakers of color. In just a few words, Trump summed up the backbone of his agenda — one aimed at reducing the number of immigrants in the U.S. through fear and force.
"Go back" was also behind his denunciation of Mexicans as rapists and murderers when he announced his first presidential campaign. It was behind his plans for a border wall, his travel ban and his attempts to end protections for migrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children. It is behind his closed-door question of why the U.S. had to accept so many people from "shithole countries."
Now it's behind his administration's move to effectively end asylum for migrants at the U.S. southern border, remaking America's role as a safe-haven for immigrants around the world.
Trump's hardline actions and sometimes racist comments have generated outrage, yet they didn't prevent Trump from his unlikely victory in 2016 and may have energized some of his supporters. With another election coming up next year, it looks like Trump is doubling down.
His policies have often been as blunt as his speech. His travel ban order shortly after he took office was billed as excluding "radical Islamic terrorists" from the U.S. A version of his ban was ultimately upheld in court.
His administration has also tried to block asylum seekers from crossing between ports of entry, and he's threatened a few times to shut down the entire southern border. He has moved to end protection s for migrants from war-torn or disaster-ravaged countries, and he's drastically reduced the number of refugees accepted.
And then Monday's announcement, which goes further than any other asylum restriction. It bans anyone from claiming asylum at the southern border if they pass through another country first. The policy, if it withstands legal challenges, seemed squarely aimed at the tens of thousands of Central American migrant families crossing the border in record numbers. Many are fleeing violence and extreme poverty in their home countries.
Trump has been struggling to manage a growing border crisis. Tens of thousands of people, mostly families, are crossing each month in record numbers. The result has strained border facilities and added up to tedious delays up and down the entire immigration system. Migrants are crammed for weeks into fetid, filthy stations not meant to hold people longer than a day or so. Children who should be placed in government-run shelters with schooling, medical care and toys are held in the facilities for weeks. Illness is rampant. Children have died.
Border agents are also suffering and lashing out — 62 current and 8 former employees are under investigation for offensive posts made in a secret Facebook group that mocked migrants and lawmakers, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the subjects of Trump's recent ire.
While Republicans say it took too long for Democrats to address the crisis brewing at the border, Trump himself was fixated on his signature border wall, forcing the longest government shutdown ever over the topic, before backing down to say he'd find the money elsewhere for the wall. Even when he's talking about the humanitarian crisis, he tends to do it through the lens of the criminal migrant.
"Democrats are kidding themselves (they don't really believe it!) if they say you can stop Crime, Drugs, Human Trafficking and Caravans without a Wall or Steel Barrier. Stop playing games and give America the Security it deserves. A Humanitarian Crisis!" he tweeted in January.
In talking about migrant caravans, he said, "many were criminals."
In defending his tweets on the lawmakers, Trump said he doesn't have a "racist bone in my body." Trump barely mentioned asylum at all during lengthy comments Tuesday to reporters, and made no reference to the major policy shift. Instead he focused his time on the topic of immigration speaking about how Mexico had hardened its efforts to stop people before they reached the U.S., and admiring their strict laws.
"Those laws," he said, "say you can actually tell a person, 'I'm sorry, you can't come. Get out.'"
Colleen Long covers Homeland Security for The Associated Press. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ctlong1
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said.
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).
Ukraine is trying to root out corruption that has long dogged the country. A dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.
That has caused embarrassment and unease as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to help fight Russia’s army, and the European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.
In Ukraine's capital, doctors and ambulance crews evacuated patients from a children’s hospital on Friday after a video circulated online saying Russia planned to attack it.
Parents hefting bags of clothes, toys and food carried toddlers and led young children from the Kyiv City Children’s Hospital No. 1 on the outskirts of the city. Medics helped them into a fleet of waiting ambulances to be transported to other facilities.
In the video, a security official from Russian ally Belarus alleged that military personnel were based in the hospital. Kyiv city authorities said that the claim was “a lie and provocation.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that civic authorities were awaiting an assessment from security services before deciding when it was safe to reopen the hospital.
“We cannot risk the lives of our children,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold online talks Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has been the key international organization coordinating the delivery of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the meeting would discuss how to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces have gained an edge over Kyiv’s army in recent months as Ukraine grappled with a shortage of ammunition and troops.
Russia, despite sustaining high losses, has been taking control of small settlements as part of its effort to drive deeper into eastern Ukraine after capturing the city of Avdiivka in February, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday.
It’s been slow going for the Kremlin’s troops in eastern Ukraine and is likely to stay that way, according to the Institute for the Study of War. However, the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar is vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, which is using glide bombs — powerful Soviet-era weapons that were originally unguided but have been retrofitted with a navigational targeting system — that obliterate targets.
“Russian forces do pose a credible threat of seizing Chasiv Yar, although they may not be able to do so rapidly,” the Washington-based think tank said late Thursday.
It added that Russian commanders are likely seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival in the coming weeks and months of new U.S. military aid, which was held up for six months by political differences in Congress.
While that U.S. help wasn’t forthcoming, Ukraine’s European partners didn’t pick up the slack, according to German’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Ukraine support.
“The European aid in recent months is nowhere near enough to fill the gap left by the lack of U.S. assistance, particularly in the area of ammunition and artillery shells,” it said in a report Thursday.
Ukraine is making a broad effort to take back the initiative in the war after more than two years of fighting. It plans to manufacture more of its own weapons in the future, and is clamping down on young people avoiding conscription, though it will take time to process and train any new recruits.
Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Ukrainian young acting student Gleb Batonskiy plays piano in a public park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
