Trump heads to border as part of drive for wall building

US President Donald Trump headed Thursday to the USMexico border as part of his all-out offensive to build a wall, a day after he stormed out of negotiations when Democratic opponents refused to agree to fund the project in exchange for an end to a painful government shutdown.

“A total waste of time,” Trump tweeted about his White House meeting with top Democratic congressional leaders. “I said bye-bye, nothing else works!”

Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, told journalists that Trump “sort of slammed the table,” then “got up and walked out.”

“Again, we saw a temper tantrum because he couldn’t get his way,” Schumer said.

Although the two sides agreed that the meeting ended abruptly, they argued over who was to blame. A partial government shutdown dragged on.

It was the latest chapter in the drama over Trump’s dogged drive for the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico.

On the border, aid workers had a message for Trump: Things are not as he says they are, and the people crossing the border harbor are not murderers and drug traffickers as he says many of them are.

“The truth is that a great number of percentage of people entering our country, asking to come in to the country, are not criminals: They are families, children, mothers, who really are asking for protection. They’re not coming here to hurt us but rather for us to help them,” said Sister Norma Pimentel, head of the Catholic Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas.