President Trump, fresh off a trip to the U.S. southern border, doubled-down on his message that “the country is full” and emphasized what he said Mexico has done recently to halt incoming migrants.
Trump spoke with Fox News’ Griff Jenkins before leaving Calexico, Calif. on Friday, laying out his view of the current state of the country’s immigration system, while also taking aim at Democrats.
“The country is full. We have ... our system is full. We can't do it anymore,” Trump said, adding that the country has constructed “big detention areas but they fill up immediately.”
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“There's never been so many people coming up and that's because they’re gaming the system and the system is changed for the worse because of what happened with Democrats and what they've done in terms of Congress,” Trump said. “So if we change the laws it would be very easy. But in the meantime, Mexico if they stop the people from coming in, we won't have a lot of people coming at the border.”
The president shared the same message earlier in the day at a roundtable with law enforcement and immigration officials, telling any potential migrants to “turn around” because the U.S. “can’t take you anymore.”
Trump also dismissed the idea of a possible summit between the U.S. and leaders in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
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“No, no. I don't need a summit. I think we've done very well without the summit,” Trump said. “I thank him very much because for the last four days it's been great. You see that whole stream is drying up. They could stop them at the southern border, their southern border.”
“And you look at what's happening now,” Trump continued. “They pulled in fifteen hundred, one thousand five hundred yesterday. They brought them back. They pulled in over a thousand the day before. Over a thousand the day before that. Today I haven't gotten the number but I understand it's a lot."
Trump last week threatened to close the border if Mexico did not step in to curb the stream of migrants. But on Thursday, he said he would be giving the country a “one-year warning,” while threatening tariffs on cars from Mexico.
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“I never changed my mind, I may shut it down at some point, but I’d rather do tariffs. Mexico, I have to say has been very, very good over the last four days...if they continue that everything will be fine, if they don’t we’re going to tariff cars at 25 percent coming into the United States,” Trump said Friday.
The full interview will air Saturday morning at 6 a.m. on “Fox & Friends.”
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