Im ali velshi. Day 903 of the Trump Administration, and the president makes a sudden retreat in his lengthy battle to put a question about citizenship on the 2020 census. This reversal came just days before i. C. E. Agents are expected to follow through with trumps orders to round up thousands of undocumented people for deportation. Early this morning there was reporting the president might have been ready to announce an executive order to add that Citizenship Question to the census, but this evening in a rose garden appearance with commerce secretary wilbur ross and attorney general bill barr, trump told the nation he was abandon that go effort. He tried to make it sound like a change in direction. We are pursuing a new option to assure a complete and timely count of the noncitizen population. I am he or she ordering every department and agency in the federal government to provide the department of commerce with all requested records regarding the number of citizens and noncitizens in our country. They must furnish all legally accessible records in their possession immediately. Trump made todays announcement after running into several legal road blocks. After he spoke, he asked his attorney general to back him up, which barr did. Thank you, mr. President. Congratulations on todays executive order. The Supreme Court correctly recognized that it would be entirely appropriate to include Citizenship Questions on the census. It nevertheless held that the Commerce Department did not adequately explain its decisions for doing so on the 2020 census. There is no question that a new decision to add the question would ultimately survive legal review. The problem is that any new decision would be subject to immediate challenge as a new claim in the three Ongoing District Court cases. As a practical matter, the Supreme Courts decision closed all paths to adding the question to the 2020 census. Put simply, the embedment was a logistic cal. A fearbased message that seemed particularly the lord to his base. Are you a citizen of the United States of america . Oh, gee, im sorry, i just cant answer that question. And thats after spending billions and billions of dollars. There used to be a time where you could answer questions like that very easily. There used to be a time where you could proudly declare i am a citizen of the United States. Now theyre trying to erase the very existence of a very important word and a very important thing, citizenship. Farleft democrats in our country are determined to conceal the number of illegal aliens in our midst. They probably know the number is it far greater, much higher than anyone would have ever believed before, maybe thats why they fight so hard. This is part of a broader leftwing effort to erode the rights of the american citizen and is very unfair to our country. Keep in mind that the government already collects citizenship data through whats known as American Community survey. Samples approximately 2 of households every year. As nbcs Pete Williams explains, that information is combined with data from other government agencies. The census counts everybody, the entire population, not just citizens. It certainly would be a legitimate thing to find out how many noncitizens there are, but the senses bureau already does this through two means. According to the most recent data in that survey, the number of noncitizens in the u. S. Is 22. 5 million. Administration critics have expressed concern a Citizenship Question would discourage some u. S. Residents, especially immigrants, from responding to the census. Today one House Democrat said even without the question the debate is already working to trumps advantage. The president has no interest in real data about citizenship. The president and his people understood that if they threatened a Citizenship Question on the census, that would create fear in immigrant communities. Its been out there long enough that at least part of the objective has been achieved. As the president backs down on one front, hes gearing up on another. The New York Times was first to report nationwide raids to arrest thousands of members of undocumented families that will begin on sunday. The times reports the immigration and customs forefront operation will take place, quote, over multiple days and will include collateral deportations. In those deportations, the authorities might detain immigrants who happen to be on the scene, even though they werent targets of the raids. When possible, family members who are arrested together will be held in Family Detention Centers in texas and pennsylvania. But because theres space limitations, some might end up staying in hotel rooms. I. C. E. s goal is to deport the families as quickly as possible. They were targeting at least 2,000 immigrants whove been ordered deported. The operation is expected to take place in at least ten major cities. Two Homeland Security officials confirmed to nbc news the raids will begin this weekend. The ten cities are atlanta, baltimore, chicago, denver, houston, los angeles, miami, new orleans, new york, and san francisco. Today the acting director of u. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spoke out in support of this weekends raids. The men and women of i. C. E. Are committed to doing their job and fulfilling that mission which includes deporting those who have gone all the way through the due process and gotten a removal order but not obeyed it, of which there are about a Million People in this country. Now, in her weekly meeting, House Speaker nancy pelosi criticized the raids but she was less specific about how to stop them. These families are hardworking members of our communities and our country. This brutal action will terrorize children and tear families apart. Will you appeal to the president , though, to put off these raids. Im going to appeal to the people of faith, the faithbased organizations to appeal to the president. I think that they put him in office and they had a better voice for this. Here for our leadoff discussion on a thursday night, franco or done yez, White House Correspondent for npr, michael steele, and former u. S. Attorney joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. Welcome to all of you. Franco, lets start with you. This executive order that the president has put forth tonight actually changes nothing materially. Right. Thats absolutely right. I mean, they basically instructed the federal government to do what the federal governments already doing, which is rather humorous. But thats trump, but that was the point. The point was to really go through the motions, stir up a lot of dust around this, feign hurt and anger and charging ahead and then wind up exactly where you knew you were going to be two weeks ago or at least the day the Supreme Court came out with its decision. Having barr come out and sort of give the legal matter on all of this, sort of the cherry on top. But ali, this was all pretty much sort of the setup for what will come possibly this weekend, even though from what im hearing, a lot of the i. C. E. Officials are not happy about these raids. Theres a level of coordination. Theyre a little skiddish about it and exactly where theyre going. If you have a Million People, you know who they are, then why havent we been doing this all along. There are a lot of questions like that that have been coming out tonight. And the administration, again, has got folks chasing a lot of bright, shiny objects down many rabbit holes. And thats typically what trump will do in this situation. Joyce vance, this is the second time we have seen President Trump could want on his attorney general to do cleanup work for him. The arrangement the attorney general used was interesting. He said it was a logistical challenge, not a legal challenge, and any effort to get the Citizenship Question would have prevailed but for the fact it has other courts and other challenges to go through. But the governments argument was therchd they needed a Supreme Court decision. This would have been instituted on day one of the Trump Administration. Its a strange argument to make. It really is. And they did run into logistical problems, but the real problem here, ali, is that what the government, what doj and the white house didnt want to see move forward was discovery into the original motivation for adding the Citizenship Question to the census because there is this newly discovered evidence that there were republican operatives who had determined that this was the data that they would need to gerrymander districts, particularly on the southern border to disenfranchise hispanic and nonwhite democratic boarders. So by conceding voters, so by conceding this issue, they really shut down any further inquiry into those bad motivates f motives for adding the question to the census. Heres what the mayor of miami said about the planned i. C. E. Raids this weekend. The federal government hasnt communicated with our government. They havent told us what the parameters are, they havent asked us to support what theyre doing or given us any information on who theyre targeting, how theyre targeting them. Franco, the last time the the president promised these raids, the problem was the president had communicated things that i. C. E. Agents dont necessarily want communicated, particularly when there are people on target lists. We appear to have done the same thing again. We listed the states and cities and the target number of people. Whats your sense . Whats your understanding . What have you learned about how these raids are going to go down . Typically you dont alert people before you go and arrest them. What were learning is that there is a lot of politics involved with this. If you talk to advocates and those who work with immigrants, they feel this is directly an effort to put fear and concern in this. But the Administration Says they are going after people who have already been ordered to leave, final orders of removal. You play the cootch nelly clip where he talks about there being a million Illegal Immigrants in the country whove been ordered to leave and have not left and they say its time to go. But this is a very interesting time. In the past these type of raids have happened, but those usually target people who have criminal histories, violent offenders. In this case theyre going after families in many cases, and thats a much different approach. Michael, franco makes an interesting point, that the message continues to be one of fear, that you should fear these people, fear the fact that there is a Citizenship Question. A departure from the history of the Republican Party but its not a departure from Donald Trumps rhetoric. Lets listen back at some of what hes had to say. Hillary clinton is going to destroy your Social Security and medicare. She even wants to give your benefits to Illegal Immigrants and youve seen that all over. If Hillary Clinton were to be elected, it would create an unprecedented and protracted constitutional crisis. Hillary clinton wants a 550 increase in Syrian Refugees coming into the country. Theyll be pouring into the country. Thats above obamas unbelievable thousands and thousands coming in. Weve got to stop the drugs from pouring into this country and poisoning our youth and plenty of others. And its a tremendous epidemic like weve never had before. This american carnage stops right here and stops right now. [ applause ] that last one, michael, was from his inauguration. This has been a steady and consistent theme for donald trump which clearly works with his base. But for the Republican Party that wants to expand its base, what does this do . Were beyond the idea of expanding the base, especially with hispanics. How do you talk to someone in the Hispanic Community while they have a relatively, a friend, or colleague theyve known for a long time who suddenly gets caught up in this weekends raids and is no longer here . How do you have that conversation with someone whose family was trying to emigrate here because of political and other economic pressures at home but their children are now sitting in cages along the border . So, you know, if you got a secret conversation that you want to have, have it, good luck. I just dont see it playing out that way. Yes, you know, donald trump got a sizable chunk of the hispanic vote in 2016, but that was before all of this. And so how all of this goes down in the Hispanic Community, particularly if he goes through with the raids this weekend and carries forward the meme we heard in the sound bites. These are people who are going to bring disease and they are taking your jobs, taking something from you, theyre a threat to your community. How do you then wrap around on the back end in the height of a political campaign, ali, and say i need your vote . Joyce, im an immigrant to this country. In fact, im an immigrant to the last country that i came i went to as well. To me, the association with immigrants and lawlessness is troubling. But to the extent that donald trump has created that impression amongst people, how do democrats push back on that without falling victim to what he continues to say about being fans of open borders and, in fact, encouraging lawlessness by not wanting to round up people whove been scheduled for deportation . Trump has driven this litany that immigrants, and particularly brownskinned hispanic immigrants who come across the southern border are criminals, that they carry disease, that theyre undesirable. And its important, i think, for democrats just to take a foundational stand that immigration is what has made this country great, that we were all, most of us, immigrants, or had family that were immigrants at one point or another, and that the entire point of america was to open immigrants with open arms. The real pearil here for the president , this will turn and hurt him at some point, is hes using i. C. E. , which is a Law Enforcement agency for political purposes, not for Law Enforcement purposes. Because these people that i. C. E. Will go out after this weekend are people who have permanent removal orders. They are largely people who are living lawfully inside of our borders but for the fact that they lack Legal Immigration status. And this forces i. C. E. , which is an agency with limited resources, to focus on this lawabiding population as opposed to using their resources to go after people who are here illegally and who are also engaged in criminal conduct. I know where the i. C. E. Agents would rather be and it would be focusing on criminals. Sooner or later that failure of priorities in this administration will come home when we see someone who is here illegal engaged in criminal activity, not sought after because theyre going after lowrisk people. To the extent you commented on the idea that this is meant whether its a Citizenship Question or its the signaling of these raids, it is all meant to send a signal to anybody who is in the United States undocumented that we are coming for you. Despite the setback on the Citizenship Question today, is donald trump succeeding on this front . Hes certainly Building Support making up his base. This was an issue President Trump ran on in 2016, and he largely credits for carrying him to the white house. On the flip side, democrats are also using this issue to kind of bolster their base. All the Democratic Candidates as we hardeard in the debates are largely talking on this issue, saying theyre going to cut back on enforcement. So this is an issue that is going back and forth, both sides are really using it to build support among their base, and its really becoming an issue were going to hear about. Thanks to the three of you. Still ahead, there are a dozen more people tonight who could now be called to testify on the Mueller Report, and that news has caught the attention of someone in the oval office. Plus, how democrats are preparing behind the scenes for Robert Muellers own testimony now just days away. Later, new numbers that should catch the attentions of the democratic frontrunner. Who today took on what he calls the trump doctrine . The 11th hour just Getting Started on a thursday night. Little things can be a big deal. Thats why theres otezla. Otezla is not an injection or a cream. Its a pill that treats differently. 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