https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/05/politics/donald-trump-border-wall-close-country-remark/index.html
Elizabeth Landers reports for CNN:
(CNN)President Donald Trump seemed to float a new idea about border control during a tax reform roundtable in Ohio.
The President was in the midst of criticizing Democrats during a riff about border security when he slipped in the idea that people might “have to think about closing up the country.”“They don’t want the wall, but we’re going to get the wall, even if we have to think about closing up the country for a while,” Trump said. “We’re going to get the wall. We have no choice. We have absolutely no choice. And we’re going to get tremendous security in our country.”Trump then mentioned the notion a second time, saying, “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.”It was not immediately clear what Trump meant by the remarks. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington said Saturday in an interview with CNN’s Ana Cabrera that Trump “is absolutely out of his mind to think that is any kind of a reasonable solution for our economy or compassionate or in line with our values.”“This President has done everything he can every time he’s in trouble to turn around and try to turn it against immigrants, and it really deeply saddens me,” Jayapal said.. . .
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Read the full article at the link.
Ironically, building the wall would do nothing to stop individuals from appearing at U.S. ports of entry and applying for asylum as they are completely entitled to do under both U.S. law and international conventions to which we are party. Indeed, that’s what almost all the remaining members of the “intentionally overhyped by Trump Caravan” did. Moreover the wall is unlikely to stop professional smugglers who can easily outsmart any physical barriers. At best, it might further enrich smugglers and kill more migrants by allowing smugglers to charge more money for more dangerous crossings.
On the other hand, a robust system for granting refugee status in the Northern Triangle and a fairer and more efficient asylum system for those who apply at the port of entry would almost certainly reduce the number of unlawful border crossings, while saving lives, and allowing the Border Patrol to allocate resources more toward drug smuggling and others who might actually threaten the security of the U.S. And a larger, more robust, and more realistic legal work visa program would also dramatically decrease unlawful border crossings.
PWS
)5-06-18