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How Trump forced Colombia to buckle · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, January twenty eighth. Leaders from around the world
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  Speaker 1: have joined Holocaust survivors in commemorating the eightieth anniversary of
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  Speaker 1: the liberation of Auschwitz. The Nazi death camp in Poland
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  Speaker 1: is the enduring symbol of Adolf Hitler's murder of six
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  Speaker 1: million Jews, along with millions more from ethnic and other minorities.
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  Speaker 1: Peter Dutton government would push for reforms to the United Nations.
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  Speaker 1: After a front bench reshuffle, new Foreign Affairs spokesman David
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  Speaker 1: Coleman is taking aim at Foreign Minister Penny Wong for
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  Speaker 1: her dealings with the UN. That's an exclusive live now
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  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com au. Donald Trump has defeated
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  Speaker 1: the first significant challenge to his sweeping immigration crackdown. The
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  Speaker 1: President is on a mission to expel illegal immigrants and
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  Speaker 1: deter others from attempting to reach the United States of America.
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  Speaker 1: Bardies had to stare down a protest from one of
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  Speaker 1: the country's hess is causing the problem.
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  Speaker 2: Just because we were founded by immigrants doesn't mean the
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  Speaker 2: two hundred and forty years later that we have to
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  Speaker 2: have the dumbest immigration policy in the world.
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  Speaker 1: That's JD. Vance and this is what he's talking about.
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  Speaker 1: A first wake of the Donald Trump presidency that's living
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  Speaker 1: up to tame. Trump's promise to go big.
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  Speaker 3: America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate.
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  Speaker 4: I think it's going to be shock and awe.
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  Speaker 1: A blizzard of executive orders.
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  Speaker 4: He declared a national emergency at the border.
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  Speaker 3: Immigration and Customs enforcement officials are accused of carrying out
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  Speaker 3: a quote unconstitutional.
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  Speaker 5: Raid shackle detainees boarding a military cargo.
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  Speaker 1: Trump has swept into office with energy levels that belie
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  Speaker 1: his status as the oldest man ever to be elected
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  Speaker 1: to the White House. And first up is illegal immigration,
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  Speaker 1: an issue that's helped him get elected twice and which
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  Speaker 1: he's framed as a national emergency.
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  Speaker 4: Trump now has to deliver.
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  Speaker 1: Joe Kelly is the Australian's correspondent in Washington, DC.
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  Speaker 4: Pere Research has done surveys on this. It's found that
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  Speaker 4: three quarters of US adults are at least somewhat concerned
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  Speaker 4: about the number of illegal immigrants entering the country. The
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  Speaker 4: majority support mass deportations, and Trump has been able to
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  Speaker 4: tap into this to masterful political effect. And one of
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  Speaker 4: the reasons for that is that the Joe Biden administration
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  Speaker 4: was weak on the borders. I think they had terrible
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  Speaker 4: failings in this regard. So during the entire Biden administration,
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  Speaker 4: there were more than ten million encounters with migrants. That
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  Speaker 4: includes those who are entering illegally as well as those
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  Speaker 4: who were trying to enter legally but found to be inadmissible,
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  Speaker 4: and eight million of those encounters were at that southern border.
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  Speaker 4: Now you compare that to the first Trump administration, and
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  Speaker 4: there were two point four million encounters at that southern border.
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  Speaker 4: So I think Trump has to deliver. He knows that,
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  Speaker 4: and he's a showman about it as well. That's why
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  Speaker 4: he signed all the orders on day one. I think
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  Speaker 4: there's probably a bunch of people in America right now
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  Speaker 4: who think because Trump signed all those orders in such
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  Speaker 4: a you know, a showman like way on the first day,
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  Speaker 4: that he's already delivered for them.
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  Speaker 1: After a week, the President has announced the southern border
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  Speaker 1: with Mexico closed. We're going to build a wall. It's
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  Speaker 1: going to be built. Believe it or not.
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  Speaker 3: It's not even a difficult thing to do.
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has been promising to stop people in during
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  Speaker 1: via the southern border. Since before he was elected the
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  Speaker 1: first time around, and since George Bush Senior in the nineties,
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  Speaker 1: American presidents have been building walls and fences along the
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  Speaker 1: three thousand kilometer border. In Trump's first term, he got
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  Speaker 1: locked in a series of battles to secure funding to
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  Speaker 1: build his giant wall in Congress and in the courts.
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  Speaker 1: Joe Biden initially halted border construction, then had to restart
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  Speaker 1: it after migrant crossings rows.
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  Speaker 5: A free for all at the US Mexico border, hundreds
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  Speaker 5: of migrants storming into al Paso, Texas right past Mexican authorities.
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  Speaker 5: President Biden has long been dead set against border walls,
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  Speaker 5: but today he's clearing the way for miles of new fancy.
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  Speaker 1: On day one in the job, Trump signed an executive
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  Speaker 1: order that is an action he seeks to take his
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  Speaker 1: president without the need for congressional approval on birthright citizenship.
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  Speaker 4: This next order relates to the definition of birthright citizens
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  Speaker 4: under the fourteenth Amendment of the United States.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good one. Birth rate, that's a big one.
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  Speaker 3: We're the only country in the world that does this
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  Speaker 3: with birthright As you know, and it's just absolutely ridiculous.
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  Speaker 1: The executive order aims to remove the automatic right to
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  Speaker 1: an American passport for children born to parents who are
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  Speaker 1: in the country illegally. Joe, the idea that everyone born
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  Speaker 1: in America has the right to US citizenship, that's such
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  Speaker 1: a big part of the American story. How significant is
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  Speaker 1: Trump's move to remove that right as a shift in
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  Speaker 1: thinking about what makes somebody American? Or do you think
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  Speaker 1: this is just gesture politics, it's more about signaling and
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  Speaker 1: sending a big message.
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  Speaker 4: No, I don't think it's just an exercise in gesture politics.
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  Speaker 4: I think we need to take Trump seriously. And if
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  Speaker 4: you look at the executive order, this was called protecting
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  Speaker 4: the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship. This is a
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  Speaker 4: profound change and it seeks to limit the way the
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  Speaker 4: fourteenth Amendment has been interpreted for a long time, for
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  Speaker 4: over one hundred years. So if this executive order holds,
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  Speaker 4: and that's very doubtful, it's estimated to effect about one
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  Speaker 4: hundred and fifty thousand children. It applies to children born
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  Speaker 4: from February nineteen, and it's not retrospective. Now he's arguing
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  Speaker 4: that basically someone born to illegal migrants in the US
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  Speaker 4: is not actually subject to US jurisdiction, and it's very contentious.
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  Speaker 4: There are twenty two states, along with a couple of
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  Speaker 4: cities that have already launched challenges to this executive order,
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  Speaker 4: And just a few days after it was signed, there
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  Speaker 4: was a federal district court judge in Seattle and he
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  Speaker 4: said that it was blatantly unconstitutional. So I expect what's
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  Speaker 4: going to happen to this is that it's going to
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  Speaker 4: end up in the Supreme Court. This is Donald Trump
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  Speaker 4: trying to test the limits of his presidential powers. He's
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  Speaker 4: trying to test the limits of the US Constitution, and
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  Speaker 4: he's prepared to take actions, sign orders which are going
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  Speaker 4: to be seen as legally contentious, and defend them into
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  Speaker 4: the Supreme Court. I think Trump is serious, and I
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  Speaker 4: think he's going to fight it, and he's going to
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  Speaker 4: fight it hard.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up after the break, how one nation tested Trump's resolve.
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  Speaker 1: Deportations are a regular part of US immigration policy. Donald
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  Speaker 1: Trump came to power talking about a dramatic escalation in this.
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  Speaker 1: He called it a mass deportation, and he's already begun
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  Speaker 1: using the military for missions like deportation flights, which previously
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  Speaker 1: used civilian aircraft. On Monday, Columbia said it would not
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  Speaker 1: accept military flights unless, as Colombia's president said, the US
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  Speaker 1: provided a process to treat its citizens with dignity and respect.
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  Speaker 1: That prompted a dramatic response.
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  Speaker 2: Trump vowed to unleash retaliatory measures, including trade tariffs and
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  Speaker 2: sanctions against Columbia today after the South American country rejected
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  Speaker 2: two flights carrying undocumented emigrants back from the UAS.
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  Speaker 1: What's your sense of how he's using this big, dramatic
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  Speaker 1: moment to send his message.
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  Speaker 4: Well, it's the new World Trump using tariffs and armor
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  Speaker 4: of economic policy to achieve an objective in a totally
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  Speaker 4: unrelated policy area relating to border security. So look, I
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  Speaker 4: think there's a lot of theater to this. As you mentioned,
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  Speaker 4: deportation flights a pretty normal, pretty routine. The Wall Street
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  Speaker 4: Journal says that so far in January there have been
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  Speaker 4: ninety forty eight to Guatemala and Honduras, fourteen to Mexico,
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  Speaker 4: and eight to Colombia. But we have the president of Columbia,
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  Speaker 4: Gustavo Petro. You know, he is a left wing president.
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  Speaker 4: He's formerly a member of a Marxist Gorilla group, and
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  Speaker 4: I think really what we're seeing is a challenge to
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  Speaker 4: US global power, a challenge to Trump's migration crackdown, and
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  Speaker 4: a test of his use of these tariffs. So you know,
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  Speaker 4: Trump will not back down.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't have to. Columbia crumbled within the day and
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  Speaker 1: said it would in fact accept the military flights.
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  Speaker 3: Joe.
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  Speaker 1: It's all reminding me of one of the big moments
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  Speaker 1: in Australian immigration policy in two thousand and one, when
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  Speaker 1: John Howard declared, we will decide who comes to this
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  Speaker 1: country and the circumstances in which they come. What are
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  Speaker 1: your thoughts as an Australian with that experience watching the
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  Speaker 1: way this is playing out now in the US.
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  Speaker 4: Challenge in America is it's much more difficult to enforce Claire.
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  Speaker 4: So that's the key difference. You know, America has this
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  Speaker 4: porous southern border and just to sketch out the challenge,
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  Speaker 4: this would be something that Australians I don't think would
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  Speaker 4: really be able to found them properly. But the new
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  Speaker 4: borders are Tom Herman says that there are seven hundred
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  Speaker 4: thousand illegal migrants currently in the United States who have
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  Speaker 4: committed a crime, who should be removed. That's a lot,
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  Speaker 4: and that's only a small fraction of the number of
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  Speaker 4: illegal migrants in the United States.
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  Speaker 1: Joe Kelly is The Australian's correspondent in Washington, DC. You
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  Speaker 1: can read all his reporting anytime in The Australian, and
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