President Trump on Thursday urged Congress to ‘‘FIX OUR INSANE IMMIGRATION LAWS NOW’’ — the latest in an oscillating series of directives about how quickly lawmakers should move on an issue that has fractured Republican lawmakers.
The president’s new plea came in tweets in which he also renewed his call to deprive undocumented immigrations of their due-process rights before ejecting them from the United States.
‘‘Tell the people ‘OUT,’ and they must leave, just as they would if they were standing on your front lawn,’’ he wrote.
As moderate and conservative House Republicans have struggled to coalesce around immigration legislation, Trump has been inconsistent in his exhortations.
Two weeks ago, as GOP leaders were seeking to build support for a relatively moderate bill, Trump said on Twitter that Republicans ‘‘should stop wasting their time’’ on immigration until after the midterm elections.
The House nevertheless pressed forward with a vote on the bill that would have funded Trump’s border wall, offered young undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship, and partially addressed the family-separation crisis at the southwest border.
Hours before the vote, Trump took to Twitter, writing in all capital letters that House Republicans ‘‘SHOULD PASS’’ the bill. Later that afternoon, the legislation was soundly defeated, 301 to 121.
A few days later, Trump falsely claimed on Twitter that he had ‘‘never pushed the Republicans in the House to vote for the Immigration Bill.’’
On Thursday, Trump was back to urging quick passage of what he called ‘‘smart, fast and reasonable Immigration Laws.’’
It remains unclear whether immigration legislation of any kind will be up for congressional consideration before the elections in November.