Trump set to move on wall
Campaign promise on Mexican border repeated ahead of security announcements
US President Donald Trump was set to take a first step toward enacting his pledge to “build a wall” on the Mexican border as he rolled out a series of immigration-related decrees yesterday.
The White House said Trump would make the announcements in a visit to the Department of Homeland Security in the afternoon.
“Big day planned on NATIONAL SECURITY tomorrow. Among many other things, we will build the wall!” Trump tweeted late on Tuesday.
Trump will also sign a measure targeting “sanctuary” cities where officials refuse to help round up people for deportation, The Washington Post reported.
CNN said he also planned to expand the number of customs and border agents.
Stemming immigration was a central plank of Trump’s election campaign and his signature policy was to build a wall across the 3 200km border between the United States and Mexico.
Some of the border is already fenced, but Trump says a wall is needed to stop illegal immigrants entering from Latin America.
Experts have voiced doubts about whether a wall would actually stem illegal immigration, or if it is worth spending billions on a wall when there are cheaper methods, such as electronic surveillance, for achieving similar results.
But a border wall has become a clarion call for the US right and far-right, the core of Trump’s support.
Still, any action from the White House would be piecemeal, diverting only existing funds toward the project.
The Republicancontrolled Congress would need to supply new money if the wall is to be anywhere near completed, and Trump’s party has spent decades preaching fiscal prudence.
Much of the land needed to build the wall is privately owned, implying lengthy legal proceedings, political fall-out, and substantial expropriation payments.
Trump had promised to make “Mexico pay” for the wall, something the Mexican government has repeatedly said it will not do.
Trump aides have weighed increasing border tariffs or border transit costs as one way to make Mexico pay. Another threat is to finance the wall by tapping into remittances that Mexican migrants send home, which last year amounted to $25-billion (R332-billion).
By coincidence, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray and the country’s economy minister are in Washington to prepare a January 31 visit by President Enrique Pena Nieto.
“There are very clear red lines that must be drawn from the start,” Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo told Televisa network in Mexico before the trip.
Asked whether Mexico would walk away from talks if the wall and remittances were an issue, Guajardo said: “Absolutely.”
Trump also wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, warning last week that he would abandon the pact unless the US received a fair deal.
Some 80% of Mexico’s exports go to the US market.
Trump is this week set to slash the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the US, according to the New York Times, particularly from Syria and other Muslim-majority countries.