A Newsweek piece points out that a section from the January 25 executive order titled "Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements" hasn't gotten much media attention but may still have a widespread impact as it calls for setting up detention facilities near the Mexico border.
Since taking office, President Trump has signed a flurry of executive orders and the ones related to immigration have been most controversial.
A Newsweek piece points out that a section from the January 25 executive order titled "Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements" hasn't gotten much media attention but may still have a widespread impact as it calls for setting up detention facilities near the Mexico border.
The Section 5 states in part, "...take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources to immediately construct, operate, control, or establish contracts to construct, operate, or control facilities to detain aliens at or near the land border with Mexico."
CNN raises the issue of where the funding will come from.
The media outlet notes, "Right now, Congress has appropriated funding for about 34,000 beds for immigrant detention -- many of which are in facilities operated by private companies across the country. Meanwhile more than half a million cases are pending in immigration court."
During an interview with CBS News in mid-November, Trump had said he wants to deport or imprison "probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million" undocumented immigrants.
Newsweek notes, "the spectre of new, pop-up jails housing hundreds of thousands of people is as powerful a fright-dream for liberals as it is a triumph for the president’s 'America first' Svengali, Steve Bannon." It also suggests that the idea seems "suspiciously like just another act of ideological showboating from the rumpled White House strategy chief."
Bannon has emerged as a key player in the Trump administration.
In summarizing the initial days of the new administration, a recent TIME story noted, "Act I of the Trump presidency has been filled with disruption, as promised by Trump and programmed by Bannon, with plenty of resistance in reply, from both inside and outside the government. "
The piece was titled, "Is Steve Bannon the Second Most Powerful Man in the World?"
