President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he is ready to deploy the U.S. military to protect America’s border with Mexico from an influx of illegal immigrants.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, the president emphasized the need to defend the border until a wall is constructed between the U.S. and Mexico, according to Politico.
“We are going to be guarding our border with our military. That’s a big step,” Trump said during a meeting with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. “We cannot have people flowing into our country illegally, disappearing and, by the way, never showing up for court.”
As pointed out by The Daily Caller, Trump’s remarks were likely in reference to the controversial “catch-and-release” policy, which limits the authority of agents along the border to detain families of illegal immigrants.
Trump also said he had spoken with Defense Secretary James Mattis about using the military to defend America’s southern border.
“We’re going to be doing things militarily until we can have a wall and proper security,” the president said, according to The Associated Press.
In recent days, Trump has been focused on securing the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly amid reports that a “caravan” of migrants, the majority of whom hail from Honduras, was making its way toward the U.S. with the intention of crossing the border.
“The big Caravan of People from Honduras, now coming across Mexico and heading to our ‘Weak Laws’ Border, had better be stopped before it gets there,” the president tweeted Tuesday morning.
Later on Tuesday, Trump claimed that he exerted pressure on the Mexican government to break up this group, and that this pressure apparently did the job.
Trump has placed blame on former President Barack Obama for America’s current immigration laws, saying at the White House that Obama made “changes that basically created no border.”
Breaking: Trump Deploying US Military to Protect US-Mexico Border