WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump has indicated that he could takemore radical anti-immigration measures, threatening that he could “close upthe country” if Congress does not fund his controversial border wall withMexico, drawing sharp criticism from a top Indian-American Democratlawmaker.
Trump has escalated his rhetoric against illegal immigration in recentweeks, especially in the wake of an annual migrant caravan that is seekingasylum in the US. He has also ordered the National Guard to deploy troopsto the border to address what the administration calls a “crisis” there.
Addressing his supporters in Cleveland, Ohio, Trump slipped in the ideathat 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 haveto think about closing up the country for a while,” Trump was quoted assaying by CNN.
“We’re going to get the wall. We have no choice. We have absolutely nochoice. And we’re going to get tremendous security in our country,” he said.
President Trump has made it clear that he plans to build an “impenetrable,physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall” between the USand Mexico.
The border is about 3,100 km long and traverses all sorts of terrain. Trumpsays his wall will cover some 1,600 km and natural obstacles will take careof the rest.
Trump claims the total cost of the wall will be USD 10 billion to USD 12billion. But experts say the cost could be much higher.
Trump then mentioned the notion a second time, saying, “And we may have toclose up our country to get this straight, because we either have a countryor we don’t. And you can’t allow people to pour into our country the waythey’re doing.”
It was not immediately clear what Trump meant by the remarks. CNN hasreached out to the White House for comment, the network said.