Trump wants U.S. Military to secure border with Mexico until wall is built
President Trump said Tuesday he wants to use the U.S. military to secure the US-Mexico border until the border wall is built.
Trump says during a lunch with Baltic leaders that he’s spoken with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis about the idea. He says, “We’re going to be doing things militarily until we can have a wall and proper security.”
He’s calling it a “big step.” Trump begrudgingly signed a spending bill last month that provided far less money for the wall than he wanted. He’s been complaining that U.S. borders are too porous and its immigration laws are too weak.
The president has been tweeting about immigration and the border for the last few days, declaring protections for so-called Dreamer immigrants “dead,” accusing Democrats of allowing “open borders, drugs and crime” and warning Mexico to halt the passage of “caravans” of immigrants or risk U.S. abandonment of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Trump has been seething since realizing the major spending bill he signed last month barely funds the “big, beautiful” border wall he has promised supporters. The $1.3 trillion funding package included $1.6 billion in border wall spending, but much of that money can be used only to repair existing segments, not to build new sections.
Among the new measures the administration is pursuing: ending special safeguards that prevent the immediate deportation of children arrested at the border and traveling alone. Under current law, unaccompanied children from countries that don’t border the U.S. are turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services and undergo often lengthy deportation proceedings before an immigration judge instead of being deported.
