Trump: ‘Massive’ immigrant surge on border with Arizona

President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday night that Arizona was “bracing for a massive surge” of undocumented migrants at the state’s border with Mexico.

The president’s tweet said the state, “together with our Military and Border Patrol” were preparing for the surge at a “non-walled” area along the border.

“WE WILL NOT LET THEM THROUGH,” he wrote.

The tweet came after U.S. Border Patrol officers and U.S. military personnel participated in “readiness exercises” along the border in Nogales. Those exercises were previously announced.

Gov. Doug Ducey on Friday said he had seen the Twitter post and was working to “understand if there was a change” at the border.

“I want to get the facts as to what the situation is today on the ground,” he told reporters after a Pearl Harbor memorial ceremony in Phoenix.

“Oftentimes, the federal government will know — especially when it’s a coordination with the Department of Defense and (the Department of) Homeland Security — before the governor will know,” he said. “When there was a (migrant) surge in February of this year…it was the secretary of Homeland Security that came and shared that with me before that was in the public domain.”

It’s not clear what prompted Trump’s tweet Thursday night, though other tweets sent by him indicated he was watching Trish Regan’s show on the Fox Business Network.

On her Thursday show, Regan interviewed Amber Smith, former deputy assistant to Secretary James Mattis, about the exercises. Footage of migrants rushing the border in Tijuana was shown above the video headline: “Arizona braces for caravan surge.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in a statement, said it had conducted “a joint large-scale operational readiness exercise at the Port of Nogales, DeConcini Crossing” on Wednesday. The agency had issued an earlier statement advising that the drills would be taking place to prepare personnel in the event a caravan of Central American migrants amassed at the border there.

“The exercises were training in preparation to deal with the potential of large crowds and assaultive behavior by caravan members,” the Customs and Border Protection’s statement Wednesday said. “They included tactical operations with the use of role players and inert smoke to simulate realworld environments. This training will allow our officers to respond tactically should a situation arise.”

The exercises came as the fate of thousands of Central American migrants gathered in Tijuana south of San Diego remains unresolved.

The situation there boiled over late last month, when some of the migrants stormed a border fence.