Illegal immigration costs US taxpayers $100 bn/yr: Trump
Illegal immigration costs American taxpayers $100 billion a year, President Trump said as he slammed the Democratic party for advocating an open border policy facilitating an easy entry of illegal immigrants into the US. His comments came amid a row over a caravan of 5,000 to 7,000 people mostly from Latin American countries, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, currently at the southern US border along Mexico to enter America.
Trump said soldiers deployed to stop the illegal immigrants from entering the US would not open fire, but would arrest them if they threw stones at the troops.
“Illegal immigration costs American taxpayers more than $100 billion every single year, more than three times the entire state budget of Indiana. We need to use our precious resources to help our fellow Americans who respect our laws, not illegal caravans who break into our borders and break our laws,” Trump said in Indiana.
Democrat immigration policies not only drain US treasury, but they threaten communities, he alleged.
Meanwhile, former US president Barack Obama has termed as "political stunt" his successor Trump's move of sending troops to the Mexican border where thousands of "impoverished refugees" are waiting to enter America, saying this is not patriotism. “In 2018 suddenly, they are telling you the biggest threat to America is some impoverished refugees a thousand miles away on foot, got their babies with them. Broke, got no money. This is terrible. And that's not enough just to lie about it,” Obama said at an election rally in Georgia.