Remarks by President Trump at the Faith and Freedom Coalition “Road to Majority” 2019 Conference | Eastern North Carolina Now

    They don't want to do it. They want things to look bad, they want open borders. Open borders mean crime, means human trafficking. Human trafficking - mostly women. Okay? Human trafficking. This is like prehistoric - a word like that, "trafficking." Who would think?

    There's more human trafficking in the world today than there ever has been in history. Who would think that? You think of it almost as an ancient term; it's not. Because of the Internet, all over the world, it's happening. Mostly women. And the Democrats don't want to fix it. Someday, you'll explain this to me.

    And I actually think, even from the strictly political point of view, I think it's a terrible thing for them. I hope they - you know, actually, I want them to fix it. I really do. But if they keep going on this path, who the hell would want to vote for them? (Laughter and applause.)

    But they should take a little time off and they should go and fix the loopholes and fix asylum. And, frankly, coupled with Mexico and what Mexico is doing now on stopping people from coming through Mexico, you would have a border that would be better than it's ever been. And we'll be there pretty soon in any event. And as the wall goes up, every area that we build, we pick the worst areas first. But it makes a tremendous difference.

    Democrats who refuse to close these smuggling loopholes are effectively supporting and promoting child endangerment and exploitation, and they're making some very, very bad people - the cartel people - rich. Very rich. People are saying they're making as much money or more money with people now as they do with drugs. These are rough people and they're bad people, and we could solve this so easily. They've got to fix the loopholes and fix asylum.

    The tragedy playing out on our border is the predictable result of Democrats' twisted obsession with open borders policy. They want open borders. You saw these massive caravans of ten and twelve thousand people; fifteen thousand people, in one case.

    And in those caravans are some very good people, but also in those caravans are some very, very bad people. And they're probably put there by the countries who want to get rid of them, probably.

    I don't say that, but we were paying those countries $600 million a year, and I cut it off about seven or eight months ago. I said, "Look, they can stop these caravans." And then I took a lot of heat from Democrats that said, "We want to pay them." Well, maybe if they get it right, but they're doing better for us right now. If you look - Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador - they're doing much better for us right now. We're close to a safe third agreement with Guatemala, which we appreciate. They're doing much better for us now than when we paid them.


    When we paid them, they were just taking our money and laughing at us. (Applause.) Now they want to - they'll do anything to get that money back. And if they do a great job, I think we'll maybe do that, right? Does that make sense? (Applause.) But $600 million a year we were paying, and we were getting nothing but disrespect. And this was for many, many years. Now I took it away, and, honestly, they've been, I think, much different.

    But they would put bad people in those caravans. They don't want killers. They don't want murderers. They don't want people that are criminals. "So let's send them to the United States." And they're not doing that anymore. And we're doing some very strong work. And, again, with Mexico having 6,000 soldiers at that border, that's a tremendous deterrent, I can tell you.

    Democrats are solely responsible for the humanitarian crisis because they've refused every single effort to shut off the magnets of child smuggling - hard to believe. As long as coyotes believe they can use children to evade our laws, children will continue to be endangered. When you come in with a child, our laws are so bad that you have a tremendous advantage. So you get these people and they give them children and they charge them for it. They walk in with a child that isn't their child.

    And because the Democrats have these horrible laws that were horrible many years ago, that they should've fixed a long time ago, but they don't want to do it for political reasons. But think of it: If you have a child, it's much easier to come in. And that's why we have so many children who have been so badly abused. And we're taking care of them much better than President Obama took care of them, I can tell you that. Much better. And he was the one that had separation. I'm the one that put people together. And I said, "You know, when you put the families together..." - because separation is so bad - "...a lot more people are going to come up." And I was right about that.

    But still, the whole concept of separation is so bad. But again, fixing the laws would solve everything. And they could do it so quickly. It's so simple. They know what to do; they just don't want to do it. If the Democrats have any shred of moral decency on this issue, they must charge - immediately charge forward and change our laws. They have to end all child smuggling.

    We have laws - it would end all of this horrible child smuggling. How do we have thousands upon thousands of children? We have them because the law incentivizes criminals to bring children up and use those criminals to get people into our country. Can you even imagine this? And we're the only country in the world that has this. The only country in the world.

    And we want to put behind bars those criminals that place children in this kind of danger. Every day, Democrats obstruct these changes. They fight like hell so that we can't make the changes. Every day, they leave laws and trafficking victims and -


    You know, we have a very, very tough rule, law: Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. They leave it in place. More migrants are put in harm's way and exposed to abuse and assault by criminal cartels. They could fix that so easy. It would take no time.

    This lesson can be seen all over the world, where the rule of law is eroded - where it is eroded. The Democrats - even when we had both Houses - where we had Congress, where we had the Senate and we had wonderful congressmen - we had the House of Representatives and the Senate, but we didn't have enough votes because it was very close. We needed 60 votes, and we had 51 votes. And sometimes, you know, we had a little hard time with a couple of them, right? (Laughter.)

    Fortunately, they're gone now. They've gone on to greener pastures. (Laughter.) Or perhaps, far less green pastures, but they're gone. They're gone, Bill. Very happy they're gone. And we have great senators, but we need 60. We have 53 right now and we had 51. We picked up two in the '18 election, but we need 60. So we need Democrat votes; it's very simple. And we needed them before, too. We needed them even more so before, when we had both the House and the Senate.

    So where the door is open to smugglers and traffickers, disaster always ensues. Nonetheless, Democrats remain relentless in pushing policies to add even more incentives to the unlawful transportation of illegal alien minors across our borders. You have no idea how bad it is, and it could be fixed instantaneously by the Democrats sitting down with the Republicans. The Republicans are all in favor of it - virtually unanimous. I would say "unanimous." We could fix instant- - we just need a few votes. We don't need many; we need a few. But they don't want to do it.

    And, you know, one thing I've learned in Washington - I've heard about it for years: The Democrats have lousy policies and, in many ways, they're lousy politicians, but they stick together better than the Republicans stick together. They stick together. They vote in a group. You don't see them going haywire. They may have a plan that's bad like this - open borders. They want open borders. They stick. You don't have people going the other way and voting, and going out and making speeches about how we're wrong. They stick together.

    We have better politicians, we have far better policy, but the Democrats do stick together. And, frankly, I give them credit for that, but it's bad for our country. It's very bad for our country.

    So let me state clearly: My administration will not tolerate - and just, we can't do this; we can't do it - we cannot tolerate the endangerment, abuse, or smuggling of children. And the only way to really stop it is to change the law, and the Democrats can do that immediately.


    We will stand strong with the courageous heroes of ICE, Border Patrol, and law enforcement. These are fantastic people. (Applause.)

    They want to get rid of ICE. ICE is so - these are great patriots. These are great people, but they're also tough. Shaun can tell you about that. You need toughness at a certain point, Shaun, right? You need physically tough - strong, tough. These are great people. Shaun is a great person, but he's tough. It's okay. We need strong people. We need tough people.

    ICE goes into these areas where you have MS-13. And to them, it's like a day in the office. And they'll walk into the middle of a gang and they start swinging. I don't think I'd want to do it. (Laughter.) I don't think too many people want to do it. But these are brave people, and they're great people, and they love our country.

    And you have some congressmen, in particular - but also some Democrats there - they want to get rid of ICE. I'll tell you what: You get rid of ICE, you're going to have problems, because we take MS-13 out of our country by the thousands. We take other gang members out and drop them back either into jails - which, in a way, I hate to do because then we have to pay for them for 30 years. I hate to do it.

    But we bring them back to their countries and say, "You handle them." The problem is that, all of a sudden, two years later, you see them again because our laws are so screwed up.

    To protect our nation, we're also rebuilding the United States Armed Forces like never, ever before. (Applause.) Lindsey Graham said last night - he made a speech and he said last night that he's been a senator for a long time. He's been in politics for a long time. He's always been very strong on the military. He's never seen our military so strong as it is today. Great statement. (Applause.)

    And I know it hurts our budgets - and budgets are very important to me - but there's nothing more important than keeping our freedom. And this is a time where we need military. More important than anything else, we need military. We'll worry about budgets. (Applause.)

    We spent - we spent $716 billion last year, and $700 billion the year before. And we have brand new fighter jets. We had jets that were so old, they didn't fly. We had jets so old, they had to go to the desert to the "airplane graveyards," they call them. They have graveyards of old planes. They had to go there to get parts. Now, we have brand new, beautiful F-35s, F-18s. (Applause.) Best planes in the world. And they're all made in the USA, right? We like that. Made in the USA. (Applause.)