Trump rages about immigration on Twitter as he demands giant border wall

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has continued to rage over immigration, calling on Congress to pass border legislation using the “nuclear option if necessary”.

Mr Trump tweeted that the US must build a wall at the border with Mexico, but argued that “Democrats want No Borders, hence drugs and crime!”

He also said that a deal to help “Dreamer” immigrants is “dead because the Democrats didn’t care or act”.

Mr Trump has previously called for the “nuclear option” – changing Senate rules to end the filibuster.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has dismissed that option in the past, saying Republicans will welcome the filibuster when they return to being the Senate minority.

The $1.3 trillion funding package Congress passed last month included $1.6bn for the wall. But much of that money can only be used to repair existing segments, not build new sections.

Congress also put restrictions on the types of barriers that can be built.

In a series of angry tweets Mr Trump threatened to pull out of a free trade agreement with Mexico unless it does more to stop immigration. He claimed Mexicans were coming to take advantage of protections granted to certain immigrants. Mr Trump said Mexico must “stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!”

The US, Canada and Mexico are participating in tense negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement at Mr Trump’s insistence. The president says NAFTA is bad for the US.

“Mexico has got to help us at the border,” Mr Trump, holding his wife’s hand, told reporters before the couple attended Easter services at an Episcopal church in Palm Beach, Florida.

Former president Barack Obama created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme to provide temporary protection and work permits to hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the US as children.

Mr Trump ended the programme last year but gave Congress six months to pass legislation enshrining it. A deal has so far proved elusive and Mr Trump has blamed Democrats.