Remarks by President Trump in Cabinet Meeting | Eastern North Carolina Now

    The second is - and you highlighted it - restoration of the fences, building out of additional mileage for the wall. The Army Corps of Engineers is dialed in on doing this cost-effectively, quickly, and with the right amount of urgency as to where we can build additional standup walls quickly and then get after the threat. The threat is real. The risks are real. We need to control our borders.

    And maybe the third piece I would share with you is that we're doing additional planning to strengthen the support that we're providing to Kirstjen and her team.

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, your people have been fantastic. And you've headed it up, and I have to say they really have done a great job.

    And again, we want to finish it. We want to complete it. Because you can't have a partial wall, because people come through the area that's not built. But the areas that are built, nobody is getting through. You can't get through, unless you're a world-class pole-vaulter in the Olympic team. It's very hard to get through. Very few people are able to get through. And you have done really - in particular, you have done a fantastic job.

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    And while we're on you, as you know, I just back from Iraq. We had a fantastic meeting with the generals and the Syria situation. I mean, I'm the only person in the history of our country that could really decimate ISIS, say we're bringing the troops back home over a period of time. I never said so quickly, but over a period of time. But everybody gives me credit for decimating ISIS.

    So we do that, and we say we're going to bring the troops back home, where they belong. I've been campaigning on that for a long time, before I won. A big part of my campaign: I want to bring our troops back from the endless wars. We have endless wars. They've been going on for 19 years in the area. But I'm going to bring them home from Syria.

    So I'm the only one that can do that and get bad publicity. They say, "He's bringing them home." Because let me tell you, when I took over Syria, they were supposed to be there for three to four months, Pat, and they ended up being there for five years. So that's a little bit different than you thought. But they were supposed to be there for a short period of time. They've been there for a long time. And we have done a real job.

    But we are continuing to fight. We never let anybody down. And there was a lot of misinterpretation, but I think you'll see at the end, that's working out. We're bringing our troops back home. We're doing things that are very excited, that I really - very exciting, that I can't talk about, that I don't want to talk about. They're very exciting. A lot of great people understood it. Lindsey Graham understood it. Some others understood it.

    But what we're doing is the right thing to do. And in many respects, it's very exciting because I like winning. When I took over Syria, Syria was a mess. It was riddled - I think you could say this better than anybody - it was riddled with ISIS. And now, everybody says it's down to 1 percent of the land, and sometimes, you could even say, less. One percent. That place was a mess. It was terrible.

    But we also have to have to other countries fighting ISIS. You know, we're helping by doing this. People say Russia and Iran. We're helping them. Everything we do over there helps them. They don't like seeing us leave because we're knocking out ISIS. Let them fight ISIS too. We're spending all of this money. I want to spend money in our country.

    But we've had a tremendous success in Syria. We're slowly bringing people back and bringing them back. We're hitting the hell out of them, the ISIS people. And we are doing something that, frankly, if I would have told you two years, when we first came into office, that we would have had that kind of success, nobody would have believed it. They would have said you're exaggerating; it's not possible.

    But we're down to final blows. And those generals were fantastic. When we met with the generals in Iraq, they were really fantastic. They really know their business.

    So we have a lot of exciting things to talk about militarily. We've had a lot of victories.

    I just got a great letter from Kim Jong Un. And those few people that I've shown this letter to - they've never written letters like that. This letter is a great letter. We've made a lot of progress with North Korea and Kim Jong Un. And Chairman Kim has been - we've had a - we've really established a very good relationship. A lot of good things are happening.

    And I never said speed. Look, it's been this way for 80-plus years. We had our meeting six months ago, in Singapore. We'll probably now have another meeting. He'd like to meet; I'd like to meet. But we've established a very good relationship. We're given no credit for it.

    You know, frankly, if this administration didn't take place, if another administration came in instead of this administration - namely Mike and myself, and the group around this table - you'd be at war right now. You'd be having a nice, big, fat war in Asia. And it wouldn't be pleasant. And instead of that, we're getting along fine. I'm not in any rush. I don't have to rush. All I know is there's no rockets; there's no testing.

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    In fact, I watched, last night, PBS. I haven't seen it in a while, PBS. And I just noticed - you know, I was in the White House all by myself for six, seven days. It was very lonely. (Laughter.) My family was down in Florida. They were all - I said, stay there and enjoy yourself. But I felt I should be here just in case people wanted to come and negotiate the border security.

    But I have to say that I was watching PBS, and they really covered it accurately. They said that, in Chairman Kim's speech, he really wants to get together. He wants to denuclearize. And a lot of good things are happening. They covered it very, very nicely. I was surprised, based on everything I've heard about them. I'll have to start watching PBS much more. (Laughter.) But they covered it very accurately. And I actually put a quote out last night about what they said. But that was very accurate.

    They really do want to do something. Now, does that mean it's going to be done? Who knows? Who knows? Deals are deals. You never know. But I tell you, we have - we've established a very good relationship with North Korea. That was going to be a war. That could've been a World War III, to be honest with you, because that would've - a lot of people would have had to get involved in that, all over Asia, and then it spreads beyond Asia. And instead, we have somebody that I really think wants to get on to the economic development and making a lot of success and money, frankly, for his country. Because North Korea has tremendous potential, and we'll help them out too. But North Korea has tremendous economic potential.

    And so I look forward to our meeting with Chairman Kim. We'll set that up. We'll be setting it up in the not-too-distant future.

    And with that, I'll ask Secretary Nielsen - we'll get back on to the border - to say a few words. Please, Secretary.

    SECRETARY NIELSEN: Sure. Good afternoon, Mr. President. So I'm in San Diego reviewing our border security and immigration efforts.

    Is it working? Can you all hear me?

    THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

    SECRETARY NIELSEN: Okay. And as you've described, sir, in fact this is a humanitarian security crisis. We're doing our best out here. I always want to take the opportunity to thank the great men and women of the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection.

    But the system itself is simply overwhelmed. This is my 17th - around 17th trip to the border in the last year. And I can tell you, unfortunately, the crisis is getting worse. Our immigration system is simply badly broken.

    So let me start by saying, from a DHS perspective, Mr. President, now more than ever we need the wall. Today I'm going to talk quickly about how bad the crisis has gotten. But to fix it, we need what our frontline operators are demanding, which is a barrier that will keep illegal aliens, drugs, criminals, terrorists, and other threats from entering our country.

    Walls work. As you said, it's not a political issue; it's an operational one. We've seen the successes of walls in El Paso, in Yuma, in San Diego, and in El Centro Sector.

    Under your leadership, we're building the first new wall in over a decade, but we need more. We need new sections of wall at our top illegal entry points - something that Congress unfortunately prohibited us from doing last year in our appropriations. And we also need to continue to replace the old, outdated, and ineffective wall sections that you referenced. We need to replace them with wall that has been identified for operational purposes by the professional men and women of CBP, not by uninformed political restrictions that have been put on our appropriations.

    As you know, the southern border remains a principal entry point for both cocaine and methamphetamine entering the United States. And seizures in both narcotics are spiking. We've also seen, unfortunately, an increase in fentanyl coming across the southern border, which kills about 72,000 Americans every year.

    The southern border is also the primary entry point for criminals and gang members. Just last year, we apprehended more than 17,000 criminals and 1,000 gang members along the southern border.

    We are also concerned about potential terrorists as well, as you know. In 2018 alone, we apprehended 3,000 special-interest aliens coming into our country along the southern border. These are aliens that have travel patterns or other characteristics of concern to the intelligence community.

    Mr. President, we need a strong border wall system to keep these threats and others out of the U.S. And I strongly support your continued efforts to obtain the needed resources from Congress.

    And if I could, let me just give you a little bit more about the crisis. We also need to address poorly written and outdated laws. Simply put, our laws allow illegal aliens into the country and allows them to stay. This must change.

    Here is the reality of the crisis we're facing: On average, as you've said, we see about 2,000 people a day try to illegally enter our country at the southern border. We'll never be able to send the majority of them back home unless, and until, Congress acts to close the loopholes these people are exploiting to stay in the country.

    To break it down, there are three categories of illegal aliens arriving at our border: single adults, family units, and unaccompanied children. In the past, single adults have been the vast majority of illegal aliens. They're still the easiest for us to handle. We're able to detain and deport them quickly. Under your administration, Mr. President, we've dramatically ramped up prosecutions of these illegal border crossers with help from the Department of Justice. And we will continue to do so.

    But the demographics are changing, and the vast majority of the people that we see now are family units and unaccompanied children. They now make up about two-thirds of those arriving at our borders. Because of poorly written laws and (inaudible) decisions, it's virtually impossible to send them home.

    We're only allowed, as you know, to hold families for 21 days. That's it. Then we have to let them go, under the law. Most of them then disappear into the United States. What's worse: In 9 out of every 10 cases, immigration judges find that these families are not even eligible for asylum in the first place and should be deported. But by then, most of them have vanished and escaped the law.

    Smugglers and traffickers know this. In fact, they know our immigration laws much better than many members of Congress. They are using this as a fast pass to get illegal aliens into America. The result is an explosion in the number of families arriving at our borders, and a massive spike in the number of fake families showing up. They know if they pretend they're together, they're likely to get in for good.

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    And quickly, the third category is unaccompanied children. Because of outdated laws, we cannot send kids to show up alone back to their home countries and to their families. They have to be transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services, which places them with sponsors or relatives in America.

    The result is we see more and more of them every day. Parents are making the unconscionable decision to send children on long, dangerous, and sometimes deadly journeys to our country. We are busting at the seams. HHS is out of capacity. And under the law, CBP must transfer these kids to HHS.

    These loopholes serve as a giant magnet, which is now resulting in a humanitarian catastrophe. Our system was simply not built to handle this influx of families and children. The human toll is real and shocking. Women are being trafficked and raped. In fact, 1 out of 3 women report they are sexually assaulted on the journey to our borders. Kids are getting abused. They're getting sick - very sick. Many of them are being recycled and used by smugglers to get more people into the United States. And nearly 70 percent of illegal aliens report being victims of violence along the journey. Seventy percent of those traveling north to our country.

    Our hearts break for families who have lost children and those who are affected by this violence. We're doing everything we can to ensure rapid medical care when needed. But the men and women of CBP and ICE are doing the best they can with what they have, but they don't have the facilities, the resources, or the legal authorities to keep up with this crisis. Only Congress can give them that.
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