The Trump administration on Sunday doubled down on its threat to shut down the southern border with Mexico, a day after it cut aid to Central American countries that President Donald Trump accused of deliberately sending migrants to the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Faced with a surge of asylum seekers from Central American countries who travel through Mexico, Trump said on Friday there was a \u201cgood likelihood\u201d he would close the border this coming week if Mexico does not stop unauthorized immigrants from reaching the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked about migration in general and Trump\u2019s threat to shut the border specifically, Pope Francis told reporters as he returned from Morocco that \u201cBuilders of walls, be they made of razor wire or bricks, will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a Saturday rally on the border in El Paso, Texas, Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O\u2019Rourke denounced Trump\u2019s immigration policies as the politics of \u201cfear and division.\u201d Trump has repeatedly said during his two years in office that he would close the U.S. border with Mexico. His latest threat had workers and students who frequently cross the border worried about the potential disruption to their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFaced with those limitations, the president will do everything he can. If closing the ports of entry means that, that\u2019s exactly what he intends to do,\u201d Mulvaney said. \u201cWe need border security and we\u2019re going to do the best we can with what we have,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
White House adviser Kellyanne Conway told \u201cFox News Sunday\u201d that the situation at the border was at \u201cmelting point\u201d and said the president was serious in his threat. \u201cIt certainly is not a bluff. You can take the president seriously.\u201d Neither Trump aide offered any specific details or timeline for the potential border shutdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt would have a widespread and dramatic impact on our markets almost immediately,\u201d said an executive at a company that ships products by rail to Mexico, citing its dependence on US natural gas, propane, gasoline and ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US government says it is struggling to deal with a surge of asylum seekers from countries in Central America who travel through Mexico. On Saturday it cut aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – a move Democrats warned would only worsen the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat we need to do is focus on what\u2019s happening in Central America, where three countries are disassembling before our eyes and people are desperately coming to the United States. The president\u2019s cutting off aid to these countries will not solve that problem,\u201d Senate minority whip Dick Durbin told NBC News\u2019 \u201cMeet the Press.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also cast doubt on the viability of shutting the border, describing the threat as \u201ctotally unrealistic.\u201d March is on track for 1,00,000 border apprehensions, Department of Homeland Security officials said, which would be the highest monthly number in more than a decade. Most of those people can remain in the United States while their asylum claims are processed, which can take years because of ballooning immigration court backlogs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Trump administration on Sunday doubled down on its threat to shut down the southern border with Mexico, a day after it cut aid to Central American countries that President Donald Trump accused of deliberately sending migrants to the United States. Faced with a surge of asylum seekers from Central American countries who travel through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58231,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58229\/revisions\/58231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}