Feinstein Encouraged Obama to Use ‘Broad Power’ to Limit Immigration

WFB: In 2014, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif) encouraged President Barack Obama to use his “broad power” to limit the “crisis” of unaccompanied minors at the border due to “sufficient flexibility in the current law,” the same law President Donald Trump has cited in forming his administration’s policies on asylum seekers.

Feinstein has been critical of the the Trump administration’s immigration policies and has accused it of “intentionally inflicting trauma on children” by separating them from their parents.

The California senator, however, supported the Obama administration having broad power to take action on immigration. In a 2014 letter to Obama, Feinstein cited the Immigration and Nationality Act as the basis for him to take action as he saw fit, Fox News reports. The act dictates a president has the power in certain circumstances to suspend or restrict the entry of “all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants.”

“Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate,” the act states.

Feinstein told Obama, “the plain language appears to give you the authority to implement all the draft changes” in legislation provided by his staff, including “offering children … the ability to accept voluntary departure and return, “limiting appeal rights,” and keeping “children … in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security rather than transferring them to the Department of Health and Human Services.”  more