Trump threatens to close the border if Mexico doesn’t ‘stop illegals” from entering U.S.
In a three-part Twitter post, President Donald Trump said he will be “closing the border, or large sections of the border,” next week if Mexican officials don’t “stop illegals from entering the U.S.”
Trump posted his statements on social media late Friday morning, taking aim at U.S. democratic lawmakers and Mexican authorities.
“The democrats have given us the weakest immigration laws anywhere in the World. Mexico has the strongest, and they make more than $100 billion a year on the U.S.,” Trump wrote, partially in capital letters. “Therefore, Congress must change our weak immigration laws now [and] Mexico must stop illegals from entering the U.S. through their country and our Southern Border.”
The president said that if the country “doesn’t immediately stop all illegal immigration,” that he would be closing the border, or large parts of it.
“This would be so easy for Mexico to do, but they just take our money and ‘talk.’ Besides, we lose so much money with them, especially when you add in drug trafficking, etc., that the Border closing would be a good thing!” he wrote.
“ If they don’t stop it we will keep the border closed. And we will keep it stopped for a long tome. I’m not playing games,” Trump said Friday at a Florida event, according to pool reports.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, late last year, the agency apprehended 50,000 to 60,000 migrants a month at the southern border.
“Last month, we apprehended more than 75,000, the highest in over a decade. And this month, we are on track to interdict nearly 100,000 migrants. Unlike previous flows, these migrants are not arriving in high numbers, one-at-a-time. They are arriving in large groups,” DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen wrote in a letter to Congress Thursday, calling the situation a “growing emergency.”
In her letter, Nielson pleaded that Congress help the agency open up more emergency shelters and to expedite deportations.
As of Friday afternoon, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had not made any comment.
This story was originally published March 29, 2019 at 1:19 PM.
