Thursday, January 18, 2018
NATION/WORLD
White House official: Trump
immigration views have evolved
WASHINGTON (AP) — President
Donald Trump’s views on immigration
and building a wall along the Mexico
border have evolved since his pres-
idential campaign, the White House
chief of staff said Wednesday.
Those changes are giving some
people hope that a compromise
with Congress on the thorny issue
is possible. But they are perplexing
others — even as the clock ticks down
to a showdown.
John Kelly made the comments
Wednesday at a closed-door meeting
with members of the Congressional
Hispanic Caucus, participants say,
and made similar remarks later on
Fox News Channel. They came amid
a shaky effort to craft an accord
protecting hundreds of thousands
of young immigrants from deporta-
tion — a push the White House and
Republicans say they would back if
it’s coupled with tough border security
measures and other restrictions.
Kelly said on Fox that he told the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus that
“they all say things during the course
of campaigns that may or may not be
fully informed.”
He said Trump has “very definitely
changed his attitude” toward protecting
the young immigrants, “and even the
wall, once we briefed him.”
“So he has evolved in the way
he’s looked at things,” Kelly said.
“Campaign to governing are two
different things and this president
has been very, very flexible in terms
of what is within the realms of the
possible.”
Kelly’s comments were noteworthy
because they openly acknowledged the
difference between campaign promises
and governing, and even suggested that
Trump needed to be educated on the
subject. They also come as lawmakers
struggle to reach a bipartisan deal
protecting “Dreamers” — around
800,000 people who arrived in the
U.S. illegally as children and could
be deported without legal protections.
Part of negotiators’ problem has been
uncertainty over what Trump would
accept.
“He’s not yet indicated what
measure he’s willing to sign,” Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,
R-Ky., told reporters Wednesday. “As
soon as we figure out what he is for,
then I will be convinced that we would
not just be spinning our wheels going
to this issue on the floor.”
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
White House chief of staff John Kelly pauses to look to a video monitor
as he appears on Fox News in Washington, Wednesday.
Some lawmakers who met with
Kelly Wednesday recalled his remarks
differently.
“He specifically said that there’s
some areas of the border that didn’t
needs the wall, and that the president
didn’t know that when he was making
his campaign promises,” Rep. Ruben
Gallego, D-Ariz., said in a brief inter-
view.
Another lawmaker, Rep. Luis, Guti-
errez, D-Ill., said Kelly told them that
“there were statements made about the
wall that were not informed statements.
In other words, I’ve informed the pres-
ident of what it takes to build a wall, so
here’s how we’re going to do it. That’s
what I understood, and all of that was
helpful.”
Many Democrats have said that
without an immigration deal in sight,
they’ll vote against a Republican bill
preventing a weekend government
shutdown. Congressional passage must
come by Friday to prevent an elec-
tion-year shuttering of federal agencies
that could be damaging to both parties.
During his presidential campaign,
Trump made it a mantra to promise to
build a “beautiful” wall that would be
paid for by Mexico.
Since then, White House officials
have repeatedly said it doesn’t have to
be a concrete wall from coast to coast
but could include large stretches of
fencing, technology or other systems.
Trump also now wants Congress to
provide taxpayer money to finance it.
One White House official said
Wednesday that Kelly’s suggestion
that Trump’s positions had evolved
was inartful, and maintained Trump
is still committed to his immigration
priorities.
Trump ended the legal shields
on “Dreamers” last year and gave
Congress until March to renew them.
Last week, he rejected a compro-
mise by three Democratic and three
Republican senators to restore those
protections, a deal that included
money to begin building the wall and
other security steps. Trump’s rejection
angered the bargainers, and partisan
feelings worsened after participants in
a White House meeting last week said
Trump had referred to African nations
as “shitholes.”
Another group of high-level
lawmakers has also started talks aimed
at brokering an immigration deal,
adding an additional level of uncer-
tainty.
Kelly said on Fox that “there’s no
doubt in my mind there’s going to be a
deal” protecting the Dreamers.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said there’s
“very, very strong” sentiment among
Democrats in the chamber to oppose
GOP-drafted legislation to keep the
government’s doors open.
East Oregonian
Page 7A
BRIEFLY
Tillerson signals
deeper U.S. military
commitment in Syria
PALO ALTO, Calif.
(AP) — Secretary of State
Rex Tillerson signaled
deeper U.S. commitment to
Syria on Wednesday, saying
America would maintain
its military presence there
to prevent an Islamic State
resurgence. He said the U.S.
also would push for broader
political changes in the
Middle East country.
Speaking at Stanford
University after being
introduced by former top
diplomat Condoleezza
Rice, Tillerson said the
Trump administration was
determined not to repeat
President Barack Obama’s
“mistake” when he withdrew
U.S. troops from Iraq in
2011. Republicans for years
have argued the withdrawal
created the opening for IS’
rapid expansion.
Instead, Tillerson
stressed that U.S. forces
would remain in Syria for
the foreseeable future as
President Donald Trump and
his aides implement a new
strategy to stabilize Syria,
where a civil war has killed
as many as a half-million
people and created millions
of refugees since 2011.
There are currently some
2,000 U.S. troops in Syria.
Uber nearing
autonomous cars
without human
backup driver
DETROIT (AP) — Uber
plans to carry passengers
in autonomous vehicles
without human backup
drivers in about the same
time frame as competitors,
which expect to be on the
road at the latest sometime
next year, the service’s
autonomous vehicle chief
said Wednesday.
Advanced Technology
Group leader Eric Meyhofer
wouldn’t give a specific
start date but he said Uber
won’t deploy the driverless
cars without human backups
unless they are proved safe.
“Once we can check
that box, which we call
passing the robot driver’s
license test, that’s when
we can remove the vehicle
operator,” Meyhofer
said in an interview at an
auto industry investors
conference Detroit. “We’re
going aggressively too.”
Waymo, the name of
the autonomous car unit
of Alphabet Inc.’s Google,
currently is testing on public
roads in the Phoenix area
without human backups and
plans to carry passengers
soon. General Motors Co.’s
Cruise Automation has
promised to start sometime
next year in an unspecified
location.
California city sues
state over Oroville
Dam crisis in 2017
SACRAMENTO, Calif.
(AP) — A small California
city at the base of the tallest
U.S. dam filed a lawsuit
Wednesday against the
state over an emergency
that forced authorities to
order 188,000 people to flee
last year, arguing the crisis
was caused by decades of
mismanagement.
The City of Oroville
blames a culture of cronyism
and a priority for low cost
dam repairs over quality
maintenance for the crisis.
Its lawsuit is the latest
escalation in years of tension
between water managers
and Oroville city officials
who believe state officials
never delivered promised
dam benefits and skimped
on repairs to continue
delivering cheap water
to farmers and Southern
California residents.
“This was not an act of
God. This was not just a
wild rainstorm. This went
back 20 years of neglect,”
said Joseph Cotchett, the
lead attorney.
The crisis began when
a massive crater opened
in Oroville Dam’s main
spillway, a 3,000-foot
concrete chute that releases
water from Lake Oroville,
California’s second-largest
reservoir.
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CTUIR - Tribal
Environmental
Recovery
Facility (TERF)
At the end of each year the employees of Pendleton Sanitary Service, Inc. (PSSI) nominate several commercial businesses or institutions
for the Commercial Recycler of the Year award. Th e winning recipient is determined by a vote of PSSI employees, as they are the individ-
uals who deal directly with the recycled materials, and are impacted by the quality of those materials. Th is award is given to a commercial
recycler that does an outstanding job in recycling, and/or has made signifi cant improvements to their recycling eff orts over the past year.
Th e employees of Pendleton Sanitary Service voted unanimously to choose CTUIR and the Tribal Environmental Recovery Facility (TERF)
as Pendleton’s Commercial Recycler of the Year for 2017.
In 2001, PSSI began working with TERF in their waste and recycling operations. A cooperative partnership formed, and with TERF’s con-
certed recycling eff orts, their recycling grew from a small operation to generating 117 tons of cardboard in 2017! In addition to cardboard,
TERF recycles: aluminum, scrap metal, plastics, newspaper, offi ce paper, and wood waste.
Not only does TERF do an outstanding job of recycling with the signifi cant volume of materials they produce, the quality control in their
recycling eff ort is excellent, which makes a signifi cant impact on reducing waste going to the landfi ll. A special thanks go to Bonnie Burke
and the team at TERF!! Great job!
Pendleton Sanitary Service would like to congratulate and thank CTUIR and TERF and their employees for the
outstanding eff orts in recycling!