Remarks by President Trump During Roundtable Discussion with State, Local, and Community Leaders on Border Security and Safe Communities | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

    Cabinet Room  •  January 11, 2019  •  3:24 P.M. EST

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Pastor, very much. I appreciate it. That's beautiful.

    So we're here today to address the humanitarian and security crisis on our southern border. I just got back. It was a sight to behold. Not pretty. Very dangerous. Drugs are flowing across. Human traffickers - you think of that as an ancient crime. It's not an ancient crime. It's more prevalent today in this world - far beyond the United States. It's a world crime given to us, very much, by the Internet and bad people.

    The Internet has made things, in many ways, better, and, in many ways, much worse. But human trafficking - grabbing women, in particular - and children, but women - taping them up, wrapping tape around their mouths so they can't shout or scream, tying up their hands behind their back and even their legs and putting them in a backseat of a car or a van - three, four, five, six, seven at a time.

President Trump watches, salutes as the Border Patrol head off in helicopters to help manage their charge of detecting Illegals: Above. (White House photo)     Click image to expand.
    They don't go through checkpoints. They go through areas that don't have a wall or don't have a steel barrier. They go up to the checkpoint, and before they get to it, they'd make a right or a left, depending on where they are, and they go out into the desert or out into the land, and they find the first area that doesn't have anything blocking its way. And they have mini-highways all over the place. You can see it all over the place and it's not good.


    And the only way you're going to stop it - the only way to stop it, without question, is with a very powerful wall or steel barrier. This is part of what we've just finished. This is a section that we're doing. This is what we've designed since I've been in. Some of the wall that they put up over the years - which, by the way, should have been put up whether it looked good or not - should have been put up a long time ago. We inherited a lot of problems, whether it's North Korea, whether it's the Middle East, whether it's a lot of other things. We took over a lot of problems and we're straightening them out one by one.

    One of the big problems we have is our border - our southern border. And we're going to take care of it. Now, the easy solution is for me to call a national emergency. I could do that very quickly. I have the absolute right to do it but I'm not going to do it so fast, because this is something Congress should do and we're waiting for the Democrats to vote. They should come back and vote. They want to go home. They're probably home by now.

    And Nancy and Chuck and all of the folks that could settle this thing in 15 minutes - I used to say "45 minutes," now I say "15 minutes." It's so simple. We need money for a barrier. If we don't have a barrier, we're just wasting all of the other money. There's no technology that's any good. I'd think you'd say that. You know that probably better than anybody - most of you guys. You know, without the barrier, you don't have security. Without the barrier, you have people driving in, loaded up with drugs, with smuggled people, with all sorts of things that you don't want to know about. So we need a barrier. It's a very simple meeting.

    We can also do a much more major form of immigration reform, and I'd look forward to doing that, along with many other people at the table, including our Vice President. And we look very much forward to moving on that. But first, we have to get a barrier because it all doesn't work without protection.

    The Rio Grande area where I was yesterday, you just have to look at it to see how dangerous it is. El Paso, Texas went from one of the most unsafe parts or cities in the United States to one of the safest cities in the United States as soon as they put up the wall. They built a wall and fencing apparatus that blocked people. So they went from one of the most dangerous cities to one of the safest cities, all within a very short period of time.

    It's common sense, folks. Everyone knows it works. Everyone knows it's not expensive. They say it's "medieval." Well, so is the wheel - medieval. I looked at all the vans and all of the serious equipment that they surrounded me with yesterday - the Secret Service, the police, the Border Patrol, ICE. Every one of those had the wheel. Well, they say wheels are medieval, too. But some things don't change. Wheels and walls. And they haven't found an alternative to either of those two, right? They haven't found an alternative.

    So we want Congress to do its job. We want the Democrats to come back and vote, wherever they may be. I haven't left the White House except to go to Iraq for a very short period of time, where I had a great experience, frankly. I met some great people, some great generals. We have great ideas having to do with Syria.

    And it's working out very well. We're knocking the hell out of ISIS, and we're bringing our folks back home. And we're going to always have a presence. And it's working out very well. A lot of things are working out well. North Korea is working out very well. A lot of things are working out well, but the southern border is something that should be easy.

    So what we're not looking to do right now is national emergency. What we want to do - we have the absolute right to do it. In many ways, it's the easy way out. But this is up to Congress, and it should be up to Congress and they should do it. And if they can't do it - if they yell that "We can't do it. There's no way we can vote for security. There's no way we can vote for safety." All Nancy and Chuck have to do is tell me. And you know what? We'll start thinking about another alternative.

    But this is one of the easy votes they'll ever have. It's very simple. And then we go on to major reform on immigration. And I look forward to that because after 50 years of talking about it, they should have done it.

    And, frankly, previous Presidents should have done the wall. It should have been done. Not just sections - small sections. The problem with doing a section of wall is they come around it. So the wall works for the area that it is, but when you have the big openings, they just come around it. And we can't allow that to happen.

    So we have great plans. I met yesterday with the Army Corps of Engineers. You know, we're building the wall right now as we speak. Somebody said, "Oh, but we had $1.6 billion and they haven't spent it." The reason we haven't spent it is because the contractors are building it. And unlike governments - and this government, in particular - I like paying after it's built instead of before it's built. (Laughter.) Okay? I learned that a long time ago, in building buildings. You let your contractor do the work and then you see if they did a good job. And if they didn't do a good job, don't pay them. And if they do a good job, pay them fast.

    So a lot of fables were told. A lot of lies were told.


    So we're building wall as we speak. We've done a lot of renovation. Some of the renovation, we had no choice; we had to rip it down and build new wall. You'll see that in San Diego and some other areas where we actually went to a new wall because it was almost better and cheaper in some ways than trying to renovate old garbage that wasn't going to work. And in some cases, you had a good structure. You had a good basis - less expensive to renovate, generally speaking. And we've done a great job.

    So we've done a lot of renovation. We've done new wall and we're building the new wall as we speak. And the money that they say we didn't spend has been spent, but it hasn't been paid. There's a big difference. And when the contractors finish up, they get paid and they're doing a second section.

    Army Corps has been very impressive. Working with them has been great. The new wall that we've designed is really beautiful. It's visual; you can see through it, which you have to be able to do. I mean, I'd like to have a concrete wall in one way, but, in another way, it wouldn't be very effective because you can't see to the other side.

    So these are steel walls. And, in many cases, steel walls - it's steel that is - that has concrete inside. It's pumped into the steel. It's hollow and it's pumped into the steel, so it's sort of a combination of both, which is not a bad combination.

    So I just want to thank the people at this table - some very special people, some great friends of mine. And what I thought I'd do is just go down to my left, and maybe I'll have three or four of you say a few words to the press. And then we could all start talking about what we'll be talking about, okay?

    And, Bunny, you've been a friend of mine for a long time - right from the beginning - and I appreciate it. And maybe I'll start with you and we'll go over to A.J.

    SHERIFF WELSH: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm the Sheriff of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Thank you for inviting us here today. Chester County is located, as you know, just southwest of Philadelphia - an area you're familiar with.

    THE PRESIDENT: Very.

    SHERIFF WELSH: We're known as a healthy, wealthy, and wise county, and the home of QVC. (Laughs.)

    THE PRESIDENT: That's right.

    SHERIFF WELSH: I like to tell you that because I want to let you know what a wonderful county it is of half a million people. And I want to share with you a very short story of a young boy named Ben, who took a trip one night from Chester County into the city of Philadelphia, where he acquired heroin laced with fentanyl. He brought that back to Chester County, and within an hour he was dead.

    I spoke to his father yesterday and told him that I would be seeing you today. And I asked his father if there was anything he wanted me to share. He gave me a wonderful story. I've given it to Kellyanne. Kellyanne, you have the story, a family story.

    But I just want to read you the last line of the letter he sent to you, Mr. President, relating to his son, Ben. "His body was exposed to a heroin substance, new on the scene, laced with fentanyl - 100 times the strength of morphine - which stopped his heart and breath, robbing us of our only beautiful boy. Drugs that came over our unprotected southern border..." And, by the way, the DEA did trace this directly to a cartel over the Mexican border. "Drugs that came over our unprotected southern border, wreaking havoc on the lives of hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of loved ones. We need to do something about this. Please, Mr. President, build the wall."

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. That's - please say hello. Okay? Thank you very much, appreciate it.

    A.J.? Sheriff?


    SHERIFF LOUDERBACK: Mr. President, from the men and women of law enforcement for the federal, state, and local level, we thank you for standing tall for us.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

    SHERIFF LOUDERBACK: Let me address the word "manufactured" that we keep hearing. It's very demeaning to law enforcement, because it's not - there's not one agent, not any agency in this country that is not affected by manufacturing. And manufacturing, I mean by the metric ton of methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and marijuana that each agency in our nation has to fight every single day. And it extremely distressing to law enforcement to have to listen to the rhetoric about manufactured crisis, when we, for ten years, over a decade, have been fighting this religiously every day. That affects every law enforcement agency in the United States on a constant basis.

    So again, sir, thank you for your position on this and standing tall for us.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Sheriff. I appreciate it. And on Wednesday, you probably heard, a very young person with a great life ahead was stabbed viciously - violently killed by an MS-13 gang member who entered our country recently through the southern border. He had a friend with him; they both came in together. Here, just for a short while. Kills somebody. That wouldn't be the first. We have them locked up in pretty tough conditions. It's a disgrace. Came through the southern border.