Accessibility links

Breaking News

US Diplomatic Cables Expose Divide Over Immigration


FILE - In this Dec. 15, 2014 file photo, the State Department in Washington. U.S. officials say the Trump administration is proposing deep cuts in funding for diplomacy and foreign aid to help pay for increased military spending. (AP Photo/Luis M…
FILE - In this Dec. 15, 2014 file photo, the State Department in Washington. U.S. officials say the Trump administration is proposing deep cuts in funding for diplomacy and foreign aid to help pay for increased military spending. (AP Photo/Luis M…

U.S. ambassadors from El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti sent urgent cables to the White House in the early days of the Trump administration, pleading with them to abandon plans to send hundreds of thousands of migrants back to their home countries.

The cables, made public Thursday, expose the divide between career diplomats and a new administration eager to push through major hardline immigration policies even as it apparently weighed possible fallout on the 2020 presidential race.

Facing legal challenges, the Trump administration later backed down from its hardline position and last month it extended protections for at least a year.

The internal State Department memos are contained in a report by Senate Democrats.

XS
SM
MD
LG