Jeff Sessions at border wall
Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions looks towards Mexico as he stands by a secondary border fence near San Diego in 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Attorney General Jeff Sessions will become the latest Trump Administration official to visit the San Diego border area when he arrives Monday to discuss the administration’s anti-immigration agenda.

Sessions will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. at an undisclosed location with Thomas D. Homan, deputy director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Justice Department officials said Sessions and Homan will discuss “the immigration enforcement actions” of the Trump’s administration.

The trip will mark the fourth time a high-ranking Trump Administration official has visited the California-Mexico border region in recent months. Vice President Mike Pence was in Calexico just last Monday.

Sessions is also expected to call for tougher immigration enforcement, with his visit coming a week after the caravan, with fewer than 200 migrants, arrived at the U.S. border in Tijuana following a roughly month-long trek through Mexico. The members of the Pueblo Sin Fronteras caravan — which came under scrutiny when Trump began tweeting about it on Easter Sunday — have since begun the process of seeking asylum in the United States.

The attorney general already spoke out about the immigrant caravan once last week when federal prosecutors alleged that 11 of the immigrants had tried to cross the border illegally under the cover of darkness.

“When respect for the rule of law diminishes, so too does our ability to protect our great nation, its borders and its citizens,” Sessions said in a statement. “The United States will not stand by as our immigration laws are ignored and our nation’s safety is jeopardized.

“U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman and his team should be commended for quickly filing illegal entry charges for individuals apprehended along the southwestern border. We will continue to work with our partners in each U.S. Attorney’s offices to aggressively pursue prosecutions of criminal illegal entry.”

— City News Service

Chris Jennewein is Editor & Publisher of Times of San Diego.