June 22, 2019

Trump Tries to Take Credit for Delaying the ICE Raids He’d Planned Himself

The president tweeted that the raids are on hold for two weeks.

Jim Loscalzo/CNP/ZUMA

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President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he would delay massive raids on undocumented immigrants that he had ordered on the eve of his reelection campaign kickoff earlier this week.

The president made his pronouncement via Twitter, saying that he had hit the pause button “at the request of Democrats.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had released a statement hours before Trump’s tweet asking for a stay.

On Monday night—one day before his first reelection rally in Orlando, Florida.—the president tweeted that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement would begin deporting “millions” of undocumented immigrants from the United States. The numbers didn’t quite scale as Trump suggested: Raids had been scheduled to remove 2,000 people who had received court-ordered removals in 10 cities on Sunday. The plans, however, had hung in limbo as acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary head Kevin McAleenan hesitated on the details, according to CNN.

Trump’s Twitter feed from earlier in the day showed no signs that his reversal was on the horizon. Just hours earlier, he appeared to affirm that the plan was still on:

He had also expounded on the plans to reporters earlier that day, noting that ICE was “a group of very, very good law enforcement people going by the law, going by the rules, going by our court system, and taking people out of our country who came into our country illegally.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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