In a shock-factor tweet on Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump said the U.S. “will build a Human Wall if necessary” at the southern border with Mexico.
He tweeted, “Tremendous numbers of people are coming up through Mexico in the hopes of flooding our Southern Border. We have sent additional military. We will build a Human Wall if necessary. If we had a real Wall, this would be a non-event!”
It is unclear what the President means by “Human Wall.”
Tremendous numbers of people are coming up through Mexico in the hopes of flooding our Southern Border. We have sent additional military. We will build a Human Wall if necessary. If we had a real Wall, this would be a non-event!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2019
His tweet comes on the day of his State of the Union address, scheduled for Tuesday night at 9 p.m. EST, during which he is expected to address several issues, including security at the U.S.-Mexico border.
It also comes after the Pentagon announced on Sunday that an additional 3,750 U.S. troops would be deployed to the southern border to assist Customs and Border Protection and help lay wire fencing.
Trump recently re-opened the federal government after 36 days – the longest shutdown and lapse of funding in history – after he and Congressional Democrats could not come to an agreement over border wall funding. Trump reopened the government for three weeks, until Feb. 15.
However, Trump nor Congressional Democrats have budged on their stipulations for border security, and Congress remains at a standstill.
Trump wants nearly $6 billion for border security that would include a wall, or steel slats, as he has pointed out.
Democrats have refused to pass any appropriations bill that would include funding for a border wall.
Before he reopened the government, Trump had proposed a compromise that included allowing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and temporary protected status (TPS) programs for some immigrants to temporarily continue, in exchange for the nearly $6 billion he wants for border security.
The proposal included $5.7 billion for strategic deployment of physical barriers, or steel slats, along key points of the U.S. borer with Mexico; $800 million in “urgent humanitarian assistance;” $805 million for drug detection technology; an additional 2,750 border agents and law enforcement officials; and 75 new immigration judge teams in order to reduce the court backlog of nearly 900,000 immigration cases, Trump had said.
In exchange for that, the proposal included three years of legislative relief for 700,000 DACA recipients, or “dreamers,” “brought here unlawfully by their parents many years ago,” Trump also said, which would mean they would have access to apply for work permits, Social Security numbers and be temporarily protected from deportation.
It also provided a three-year extension of TPS, meaning “300,000 immigrants whose protected status is facing expiration will now have three more years of certainty so Congress can work on an immigration deal,” Trump had explained.
Trump last year around this time had said DACA would not be restored if a border wall wasn’t funded.
However, Democrats rebuffed the compromise proposal, even though it contained things they had advocated for in the past, such as DACA.
Trump had last March signed a $1.3 billion appropriations bill that did not include funding for a border wall or DACA; he said he considered vetoing the bill but signed it in order to fund the government.
The President has reportedly drafted a proclamation that would declare a national emergency in order to build the southern border wall, which would allocate more than $7 billion in funding from other sources.
Regarding the divide over what he calls a “humanitarian and security crisis” at the southern border, Trump also tweeted on Monday, “With Caravans marching through Mexico and toward our Country, Republicans must be prepared to do whatever is necessary for STRONG Border Security. Dems do nothing. If there is no Wall, there is no Security. Human Trafficking, Drugs and Criminals of all dimensions – KEEP OUT!”
With Caravans marching through Mexico and toward our Country, Republicans must be prepared to do whatever is necessary for STRONG Border Security. Dems do nothing. If there is no Wall, there is no Security. Human Trafficking, Drugs and Criminals of all dimensions – KEEP OUT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2019
