Trump to cut aid as migrant ‘caravan’ heads to US border

DONALD TRUMP yesterday said he will “now begin cutting off, or substantially reducing, the massive foreign aid routinely given” to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, after they failed to halt the progress of a migrant “caravan”, heading towards the US border.

The group of Central American migrants was 200-strong when it left San Pedro Sula in Honduras a week ago, but by last night it had swelled to 7,000 people, the United Nations said.

The US president, whose approval rating appears to be rising due to his stance against the caravan, said the migrants presented “a national emergency”. Mr Trump wrote on Twitter yesterday: “Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s police and military are unable to stop the caravan heading to the southern border of the United States”.

He added: “Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and military that this is a national emergency. Must change laws!”

Journalists with the caravan have not found anyone from the Middle East among the Central Americans.

Mr Trump, whose approval rating ahead of November midterm elections has jumped to 47 per cent – a higher level than Barack Obama’s before the 2010 midterms according to a new NBC/WALL Street Journal poll – has taken advantage of the caravan’s progression to attack the Democrats.

He wrote on Twitter: “Every time you see a caravan, or people illegally coming, or attempting to come, into our country illegally, think of and blame the Democrats for not giving us the votes to change our pathetic immigration laws!

“Remember the midterms! So unfair to those who come in legally.”