President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged Congress to take action to stop the illegal immigrants from entering the United States from its southern border with Mexico.
“Congress has to meet quickly and make a deal. I could do it in 45 minutes. We need to get rid of chain migration,” President Trump was quoted in reports while addressing the media in the Oval Office in the presence of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg:
“We need to get rid of catch and release and visa lottery. And we have to do something about asylum. And to be honest with you, we have to get rid of judges,” the President continued while adding that he no longer wanted to detain immigrants trying to cross the Southern border illegally and “bring them to a court.”
Trump went on to add that the present immigration system is the “dumbest in the world”, however, “The Democrats don’t want to change it because they don’t want to give Republicans a victory.”
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The President said he had spoken to Democrats about a potential immigration deal, and “all the sudden they’re changing” their minds.
Last week, the President threatened to shut the US’s southern border “or large sections of it” next week if Mexico did not begin apprehending more migrants.
“They’ve made a big step over the last two days. They are apprehending people,” Trump was quoted as saying.
“The fact that they’re doing that means fewer people are going to come,” he added.
However, when asked about the severe economic impact of closing the border, Trump said, “Security is more important to me than trade.”
“We’ll have a strong border or we’ll have a closed border,” the President noted.
In his tweets last week, Trump said: “Mexico must use its very strong immigration laws to stop the many thousands of people trying to get into the USA,” or else the “next step is to close the border!”
The US President had previously voiced his disdain for the influx of illegal immigrants from the US-Mexico border. His demand for USD five billion in funding for a wall on this border and the US Congress’ subsequent denial of the money led to the United States government’s longest-ever partial shutdown in the nation’s history.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon notified the US Congress that it had transferred USD one billion to begin new wall construction at the US-Mexico border at the behest of the US President.
This drew immediate objections from Democratic lawmakers, who have been against Trump’s initiative, going as far as labelling it as a waste of taxpayer money.