Trump says US economy, weak laws reasons for increase in illegal immigration
President Trump said on Sunday the reason that more people are entering the U.S. illegally through the southern border with Mexico is due to the strength of the U.S. economy.
“People are pouring up because our economy is so good. I mean, unfortunately it’s the only bad part about what we’re doing because everybody wants a piece of it and they’re willing to come up and take the risk and this tremendous danger,” Trump told “Sunday Morning Futures.”
The president also blamed weak immigration laws and lack of Democratic support for contributing to the influx of people crossing the southern border into the U.S.
“We have catch and release and we have chain migration and a visa lottery,” Trump said. “We have things that nobody in their right mind would have. We’re trying to get rid of them, the Democrats won’t do it. We need some Democrat votes, we’re unanimous with the Republicans, but we need some Democrat votes and they go out of their way to allow these people come in.”
The president said the situation at the border has become “like Disneyland,” since families are no longer being separated, and that a figure like “Perry Mason” needs to get involved, referring to the backlog of immigration cases in U.S. federal court that still have to be sorted out.
“Before you get separated so people would say ‘let’s not go up.’ Now you don’t get separated,” Trump said. And while that sounds nice and all, what happens is you have literally 10 times more families coming up because they’re not going to be separated from their children.”
Meanwhile, Republicans continue their efforts to reform immigration laws. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told “Sunday Morning Futures” earlier this month that he was working on a bill that would change asylum laws, including modifying the Flores settlement of 1997, that set the standard for the treatment of minors in detention centers and how long a minor may be held. Under current law, minors may only be detained for a maximum of 20 days.
The Trump administration had come under fire for its “zero tolerance” immigration policy that led to families being separated at the southern border. The Office of the Inspector General issued a report in January that found that “thousands” more children may have been separated from their families last year, in addition to the 2,737 that the Department of Health and Human Services already identified in its care at the time.
Trump said he is working on an immigration plan that is “based on merit,” since companies are “pouring in” to the U.S. and need to hire employees.
“We’re doing a plan based on merit where people come in based on merit so they can help us,” he said. “They have skills, they have talent.”
Despite efforts by the administration and Republican lawmakers to curb illegal immigration, the number of apprehensions of undocumented immigrants entering the U.S. at the southern border reached a 12-year high in March of more than 92,000, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol data. The agency said the majority were from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
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The president criticized the Mexican government, saying it needs to do more to stop the large number of people trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico, and has threatened to close the border if it doesn’t “start shaping up.”
A border closure would affect major industries that rely on trade and potentially pose a risk to the new trade deal between the two countries and Canada (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA), which still needs to be ratified by U.S. lawmakers. About $502 billion in goods, or roughly $1.4 billion per day crossed the southern border via trucks and trains last year, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
“I’ll do anything I have to because this to me is more important than USMCA,” Trump said.