Republican President Donald Trump slammed the opposition Democratic party on June 10 while praising Mexico for its work stemming the flood of migrants that are making their way north from Central America.
“It’s sad that, when you think of it, Mexico is doing is more for the United States, as of now, than Congress. And, specifically, the Democrats, they have to get their act together,” he told reporters at the White House.
“They have to work and get something done because you got a tremendous problem at the border. You have people pouring in. And it means crime. It means drugs. It means so many other things.”
Trump noted that his administration is working on preventing illegal immigration.
“We’re building the wall. We’re going to have close to 500 miles of wall built by the end of next year. That’s a lot. And we’re moving along very rapidly. We won the big court case, as you know, the other day. And that was a big victory for us,” he said.
“Our nation is experiencing an unprecedented border security and humanitarian crisis on the southwest border, both at and between our ports of entry,” Randy Howe, the executive director for operations, Office of Field Operations at the agency, told reporters on a phone call on June 5.
“Mexico has agreed to take strong measures to stem the tide of Migration through Mexico, and to our Southern Border,” he said. “This is being done to greatly reduce, or eliminate, Illegal Immigration coming from Mexico and into the United States.”
The key part of the agreement gives the United States the authority to return migrants who apply for asylum to Mexico while they await adjudication of their cases, which can take years to be fully processed.
Mexico also agreed to send thousands of troops to its southern border to enforce its policies there.
Mexico was also taking “decisive action to dismantle human smuggling and trafficking organizations as well as their illicit financial and transportation networks,” the State Department said.
“Another false report in the Failing @nytimes,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “We have been trying to get some of these Border Actions for a long time, as have other administrations, but were not able to get them, or get them in full, until our signed agreement with Mexico.”
Asked about the portion of the agreement that hasn’t been announced yet, the president told reporters on Monday: “we have an agreement on something that they will announce very soon. It’s all done. And they have to get approval, and they will get approval. If they don’t get approval, we'll have to think in terms of tariffs.”
He added later: “We do have one other thing that will be announced at the appropriate time. But they have to get approval from their legislative body.”
