The Trump presidency continues to be defined by the president sticking to his campaign talking points above all else and ignoring essentially any alternative considerations. During an address that at this point took place years ago, the man who is now president insisted that populations of undocumented immigrants who have come over our border with Mexico harbor especially large numbers of criminals, and the Donald Trump we are dealing with today is still of the same mindset.
In his world, undocumented immigrants coming over our border with Mexico seem like hordes of maniacal killers who he feels compelled to protect the people of the United States from. That’s the sort of ideological platform that underlies the extreme way in which he has approached immigration policy, going so far this Saturday as to suggest that we will “close up” the United States in the face of legislators refusing to go along with his plans.
Speaking at an event in Cleveland that was supposed to focus on tax reform, Trump pivoted from trade issues to issues of immigration.
He told those present:
‘Our borders and our laws are a mess. Our immigration laws are a disgrace… We are fixing and building walls now, but we need much more money [because] we’re doing the job right… and we may have to close up our country to get this straight because we either have a country or we don’t, and you can’t allow people to pour into our country the way they’re doing.’
Concurrent to these remarks, the president also attacked Mexico for supposedly not doing enough to stop a recent “caravan” of people from Central America making their way to the United States, and he also attacked Democrats for supposedly wanting “open borders.”
Watch the video below.
President Trump slams Mexico on trade and immigration at a tax reform event in Cleveland: “Mexico has some of the toughest immigration laws in the world … but they allow these people to come up through Mexico and come into our country” https://t.co/c65RaMonBv
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) May 5, 2018
To be clear, Democrats do not want “open borders,” they just don’t want to see a monument to the president’s incendiary vision go up in the form of the wall he’s long sought between us and Mexico. In addition, the president has repeatedly slammed Mexico’s handling of individuals aiming to make it to the United States recently, but what are they supposed to do, take them into custody and imprison them endlessly? They’re not criminals; they’re just people trying to make it somewhere that they have a better chance at literal survival.
Even still, the president remains under the apparent impression that the greatest threat to the United States is undocumented immigration and is hellbent on seeing a border wall go up. Although what exactly the president meant Saturday by potentially “closing up” the country is unclear, he has in the past suggested that he will veto future spending bills if they do not contain the funding he wants for “border security.”
He did, earlier this year, threaten to veto a spending bill over the lack of immigration funding, but he eventually relented and signed it.
His language also calls to mind his efforts to ban Muslim travelers from coming to the United States, which encountered unsurprising legal challenges during his first year or so in office.
In other words, he could have in mind to close the border altogether and not let anyone in at all.
Featured Image via Screenshot from the Video
