Threatens border shutdown

Trump threatens border shutdown if Mexico doesn't remove migrants

By CAITLIN OPRYSKO

President Donald Trump on Monday demanded that Mexico deport the caravans of asylum-seeking migrants pressing up against the U.S. border “anyway you want,” threatening to close off the U.S. border “permanently if need be.”

“Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries. Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the U.S.A.,” Trump tweeted, offering no evidence to support his claim that the migrants are criminals.

Chaos broke out at the U.S.-Mexico border near Tijuana, Mexico, over the weekend as U.S. authorities deployed tear gas on migrants who had rushed the border. The San Ysidro port of entry, one of the busiest crossings into the U.S., was completely shutdown on Sunday morning before reopening Sunday night.

The clash prompted Mexico’s Interior Ministry to vow that it would increase security at the border. The ministry said that it had arrested more than three dozen migrants who “violently” attempted to breach the border, according to The Associated Press.

The Trump administration reached a tentative deal over the weekend with the administration of incoming Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that would keep the migrants in Mexico while their U.S. asylum claims are processed, rather than allowing them to remain in the U.S. during that time.

Trump has repeatedly referred to the migrants as criminals en masse, despite there being no evidence to support his claims.

Trump on Monday also repeated his calls on Congress to provide more money for his proposed wall along the southern border, an issue likely to be a key point of contention as Congress negotiates to avoid a shutdown of large swaths of the federal government next week.

A bipartisan Homeland Security spending bill approved by Senate appropriators would include $1.6 billion in funding for a border wall, but Trump has told Republicans that he will not settle for less than $5 billion in funding. Lawmakers face a Dec. 7 deadline to come to an agreement on funding, but with a 60-vote threshold in the Senate, Democratic cooperation will be required for any deal.

Trump has said before that he would shut down the government in an attempt to extract more money for a border wall from Congress.