President Trump marked one hundred days in office on Tuesday. Lest anyone has been asleep for the five score day period we can safely assert that every one of those days has been eventful. We live in a time of "whiplash" policy. What is in force today may well not be in force tomorrow. Hold on to your hats and think of the Dow Jones as the financial version of the weather - variable to put it mildly.
So, never a dull moment, or a quiet or reflective one. The president has been very busy indeed signing executive orders. A prize will be offered to the first person who can come up with a number. Of course that number is not standing still. At time of writing the number posted by the Federal Register is 137.
The two latest, signed on April 28, are headed: "Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens" and "Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens."
Most will not have noticed but according to one of them "The prior administration allowed unchecked millions of aliens to illegally enter the United States. The resulting public safety and national security risks are exacerbated by the presence of, and control of territory by, international cartels and other transnational criminal organizations along the southern border, as well as terrorists and other malign actors who intend to harm the United States and the American people. This invasion at the southern border requires the Federal Government to take measures to fulfill its obligation to the States.
"Yet some State and local officials nevertheless continue to use their authority to violate, obstruct, and defy the enforcement of Federal immigration laws. This is a lawless insurrection against the supremacy of Federal law and the Federal Government’s obligation to defend the territorial sovereignty of the United States."
"Lawless insurrection."
This assertion might come as a surprise to some of those states and cities. Well, perhaps not. President Trump is very open about how he feels about things. During his election campaign he spoke long and loudly about "criminal aliens" in our midst.
The lawless insurrectionists are to be found in so-called "Sanctuary" jurisdictions. They can expect a knock on the door from Uncle Sam any day now.
There's no doubt that uncontrolled immigration is an issue. It has been for years. Millions of Americans voted for Trump on the basis of his promises to deport as many as eleven million people. That target may well be out of reach though, as noted above, we are only a hundred days into the president's four year term.
Congress, of course, could have addressed the immigration situation at any time this century. But all effort by the imaginative and concerned few fell on infertile ground. When it comes to immigration, the U.S. Congress is an arid place, not unlike much of the borderland now patrolled by federal troops.
As Irish Times Washington correspondent Keith Duggan noted: "Public sentiment towards the president has fallen to 'historically low numbers' with an approval rating of 41 per cent, the lowest after 100 days since Dwight Eisenhower settled into the Oval office in 1953.
"The tide of public opinion has, according to the CNN poll (which will be rubbished by Trump) even turned on immigration: yes, the once-teeming southern border is reportedly deserted now but the methods involved in bringing this about have caused deep unease.
"On Monday morning Tom Homan, the granite-jawed 'border tsar,' made a rare appearance in the White House press room to underscore the success of the policy, echoing an administration press release headlined: 'In the First 100 Days, the Trump Administration Has Taken Killers, Rapists, Off Our Streets.'
"This is, unquestionably, true and it has been a source of ongoing vexation to both the president and his staffers that the “legacy media” has chosen to focus on individual cases rather than the impact of the overall policy."
Funny thing about individuals; in America.
It's unlikely that President Trump will suddenly go soft on immigration, even with headlines pointing to U.S. toddler citizens being shown America's door.
On the contrary, such headlines show him to be strong and unblinking. Tom Homan should not complain too loudly.
There's no doubt that something had to be done on the immigration front. The situation as it has been for so many years could not have been permitted to linger into a boundless future.
Much of recent immigration/migration has been rooted in difficult situations in a number of countries around the world. But now, alarmingly, America is retreating from that troubled world in terms of aid and diplomatic connection. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is presiding over this great shrinking. The Chinese and the Russians can't believe their luck.
Meanwhile, back to the hundred days. Napoleon notched up that number before he met his fate at Waterloo. President Trump is not facing such a thing as a pitched battle on a Belgian field. But he is facing falling opinion poll numbers. It will be interesting to see how he faces into this likely unexpected turn of events in the next hundred days.
