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

    And we're doing tremendous - I mean, we're doing big numbers. They don't like Donald Trump, I can tell you that. They don't like me at all, and that's just fine. That's the way I want it. But MS-13 and other gangs, we're getting them out. And ICE and Border Patrol, these people have done an incredible job. They are going to be making the presentation at three o' clock to the folks coming up from Congress.

    But I have to tell you, it would be a lot easier if I didn't do anything, if I just sat and enjoyed the presidency, like a lot of other people have done, and don't bring up the southern border, and don't talk about all of the problems that were taking place at the southern border that nobody wanted to discuss. The fact that people would just flow in like it was water, and a lot of things happened. They'd stay in.

    Look, when you hear - I've been hearing 11 million; I've been 12 million; I've been hearing 35 million. For years, we've been hearing the same numbers; you've been hearing the same numbers. I used to hear 11 million all the time. It would always stay right at 11. I said, does it ever increase or go down? "No, it's 11." Nobody knows. It's probably 30, 35 million people. They would flow in mostly from the southern border. They'd come in, and nobody would talk about it, nobody would do anything about it. And a lot of problems were caused, including problems to our educational systems, to our hospital systems, to so many different things that we have. And tremendous damage was done.

    So it would have been a lot easier for me to sit back and just let it continue. But it was out of control. And our strong economy makes it even more difficult because people come up, because our country is doing better, by far, than any other country in the world, from an economic standpoint. We're the talk of the world. And we had a little glitch in the stock market last month, but it's still up, I guess, around 30 percent from the time I got elected. And it's going to go up.

    Once we settle trade issues, and once a couple of other things happen, it's going to go up. It's got a long way to go. Tremendous amount to go. The trade deals we're making are fantastic for our country - fantastic - whether it's China, Mexico, Canada, South Korea. We started negotiations with Japan. They were all one-way streets. They were bad for our country and good for their countries. We're changing that.

    Pat is working so hard on the military. We have a - we were taken advantage of by so many countries on our military. We're providing all they want, and they're not helping us, they're not doing anything toward helping us monetarily. It's disgraceful. I've been saying it for years. Disgraceful. We're giving military protection to countries that are very wealthy, and they're not doing anything for us. You can call them allies if you want, and we have some great allies, but a lot of our allies were taking advantage of our taxpayers and our country. We can't let that happen.

    And Pat Shanahan agrees with that, and he's agreed with that for a long time. So - and that was very important to me. I couldn't get other people to understand it. They couldn't understand it. They didn't get what I was saying.


    So a lot of great things are happening. It's a lot easier if I did nothing and we just kept going away. But eventually, at some point, really bad stuff would take place. So we're very proud of the job we're doing. I'm very proud of the people around this table.

    I'd like to - we're talking the migration coming up. And just if Alex Azar, who's been doing a fantastic job getting drug prices down - we're almost ready to make that big, final push where they're going to see something, Alex. It's not an easy situation. They've been trying for years. I don't think anybody has actually been trying. We have been. And we've done an incredible job. You'll see a final couple of strokes made. It's going to be - which takes a long time to set up statutorily. Statutorily, we have - we've gone through a big process. And I think you're going to see a tremendous reduction in drug prices.

    And a lot of great work was done, along with Secretary Acosta, who has created some incredible healthcare programs, cooperative programs, where the price of healthcare has really gone down, much far below Obamacare. Far below. And some really great programs that people are signing up, I hear, in tremendous numbers.

    I'd like to - and thank you. What a great job you've done on healthcare. A lot of people don't know about it, but we've set up some incredible healthcare programs that are far better than Obamacare and a lot less expensive.

    But if I could ask Secretary Azar just to say - where the children are coming up and they're very sick by the time - these are young children, and they're forced to come up. And remember this: the coyotes. These are - these are bad ones. The coyotes. They're not stupid. They know our laws better than the people that wrote them. The coyotes are using children to gain access into this country.

    They're using these children. They're not with families. They're using the children. They're taking the children. And then they dispose of the children after they're done. This has been going on for years. This isn't unique to us. But we want to stop it.

    Secretary, if I could ask you to just talk a little bit about the children situation and how sick some of these children are by the time they get to the border.

    SECRETARY AZAR: Sure, Mr. President. Thank you very much, and thank you for your strong leadership and the efforts to secure our borders and fix our terribly broken immigration system.

    We at HHS have a role in addressing the tragic consequences of this broken system through caring for these unaccompanied alien children, or UACs. These are minors who are arrive at the border without their parents. Traveling to the U.S. border is extremely dangerous, with minors suffering physical, mental, or sexual trauma on the way to this country.

    Parents should not send their kids on this journey. This is not a compassionate act; this is a dangerous act. It is endangering your children.

    Unfortunately, more and more minors have been arriving at our border over the last year. When UAC are apprehended at the border, the Department of Homeland Security takes them into custody. DHS then refers them to HHS, where we then select a grantee to care for them until we can release them to a suitable sponsor.

    While we saw a dramatic drop in the number of unaccompanied children arriving after the President took office, the numbers are now rising significantly. In calendar year 2017, we received approximately 29,000 unaccompanied children. In calendar year 2018, we received approximately 51,000 unaccompanied alien children referrals, almost doubling from the previous year.

    Currently, there are almost 13,000 unaccompanied alien children in our care, and we expect that number to rise during the new year. We've brought more capacity online to address the situation, almost doubling our capacity in the past year.

    But having to continually expand capacity is simply a symptom of a broken system. Caring for unaccompanied alien children in an appropriate environment is also incredibly expensive. Care for UAC in fiscal year 2018 cost about $2 billion, just for that. And we expect something similar for this coming year, unless the situation is addressed.

    Imagine if we secured our border and we didn't have to spend that $2 billion caring for these kids, what we could do with that $2 billion.

    We also have had to provide technical assistance and surge capacity to help address medical needs of both adult and children migrants when they arrive in DHS facilities. We're proud of the standards that we've set for the care of these kids in the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program, but this is a tragic, unsustainable situation that will continue until our immigration system is fixed.

    As the President mentioned, we need a system that discourages parents from working with smugglers to bring minors into our country on this dangerous journey. And we need it now.

    And I also want to note, Mr. President, that great work you did with President Xi on getting fentanyl scheduled so that it's a crime there, to cut down on the flow of fentanyl to this country. If we do not have border security on our southern border, it's going to redirect to Mexico, and it's going to come in from there and keep killing American citizens even with China scheduling it and stopping the flow from China. We'll get it out of Mexico if we don't get this border secured with a wall.

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. And thank you also on what you're doing with drug pricing. It's going to be something. I really think it's going to be something very spectacular. We appreciate it. Thank you, Secretary.


    Mr. Vice President, please.

    THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr. President. And having spent the Christmas break here in Washington, along with you, I just - I want to thank you for the strong stand you've taken for border security, not just because you said you would, but because as the Cabinet and the nation looking on today can see, you recognize that we have a crisis at our southern border.

    And we think of the tragedy of Officer Singh, a legal immigrant to this country being struck down by an illegal immigrant at the time of the Christmas holiday. We think of the videos that the American people woke up to today of a large assault on our border that required our Border Patrol to deploy tear gas.

    This is the information you hear every day, we are made aware of every day. But you bringing it before the American people, and being willing to take a strong stand to shut down the government until we secure the funding to build a wall and bring about the kind of changes that will achieve true border security, I know is something that millions of Americans appreciate. And I personally appreciate your stand.

    You gave the numbers before, but they're worth repeating. Seventeen thousand criminals have been apprehended attempting to come into this country. And since this administration took office, 235,000 criminal illegal aliens have been apprehended by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in this country.

    We think about the tragedy along the border that the Secretaries both spoke about today, but we think of the human cost to the American people in our society by not addressing this issue in a meaningful way.

    Mr. President, you directed our entire team to reach out to Democrats in the Congress. We met several times before Christmas. And Mick Mulvaney and I traveled, and we met with Leader Schumer. And there, we presented a good-faith offer to resolve this issue, to achieve a principled compromise, only to find out, days after Christmas, that the Democrats had stopped negotiations altogether.

    They're coming here today at your invitation. Our sincere hope is that, confronted with these facts and with the information that we will review again today, is that Democrats on Capitol Hill will join Republicans and will join in your call to achieve real border security. And as you said yesterday, we're ready to deal. We have an offer on the table that would reopen the government and achieve border security.

    I know other senators are talking about fresh ideas, some of which you've reflected on today and I know we'll give due consideration to those issues. But we owe the American people nothing less than our best efforts, not just to reopen the government, but as you have made clear, to reopen the government once we have the resources to build a wall, a physical barrier, and make measureable progress on achieving real border security.

    THE PRESIDENT: That's right, Mike. Thank you very much. It's true.

    I want to thank Mick Mulvaney. He's been really an activist. He has got great energy. And you're doing a great job as Chief. We appreciate it. Pulled everything together very quickly. Things are going very well.


    Again, I want to say that Middle East - we inherited a lot of problems. When I became President, I took over a whole lot of problems - the Middle East, the southern border, North Korea. And that was the easy stuff. Okay? (Laughter.) We took over a lot of problems, and we've done - I think we're going to do well with all of them. I think we're doing really well. We're doing - whether we should have ever been in the Middle East or not, that's a question for a lot of people. You know where I come from on that. But we're doing something very special. I think, in the Middle East, I think you're going to see that.

    And I follow what I said in the campaign for a long period of time. But we're doing a lot more work and a lot more result than I ever thought we could do and that I could do as President.

    With North Korea, you know how I stand on that. It's been - it was rough there for a while. And if you go to before I got elected, and you looked at what was happening, and you look at what's going on right now, the relationships really have been very good. We'll see what happens. I always say, it's deals - it's dealing with people. But I will tell you, we have - I know you guys would love to see what's on this letter, and I'd, frankly, love to - I'd love to read it to you. But we have a very - we have a very good relationship going. So, time will tell. Time will tell.

    But - and the economy. The economy is doing fantastically well. Unemployment is at a record low. Unemployment for black, Hispanic, Asian, is at the lowest it's ever been in the history of our country. Even Kanye West came out today and said great things about Trump. He's a good guy but he said great things about us because he sees what we're doing. He's smart and he sees what we're doing.