President Donald Trump’s legislative director Marc Short said the country needs a “physical barrier along our Southwest border” Friday, despite claims the Trump administration is caving on the issue.
“Our national security interests have only become more severe in the last 11 years, not less. So let’s go back and look back at what Congress has already supported as a starting point for why we need to make sure there is a physical barrier along our Southwest border,” he said.
Short says years of inaction by Congress created the border problem, and they have to be the ones to step up and fix it.
“What we’ve agreed to at this point is Congress has failed to solve this problem for years, and that we now need to move quickly because the actions the Obama administration took were unlawful,” he said. “So to solve the problem we need to work with Congress, that has been the discussion at this point.”
Short said the administration has requested additional funding to add 10,000 additional border agents, to track down illegal immigrants who’ve overstayed their visas.
“We’ve asked in our budget for 10,000 additional ICE agents because in many cases there are people overstaying their visas, and that’s actually a national security priority. We actually know where they are, but we don’t have the agents who can actually enforce the laws of the country,” he said.
Short denied the White House ever considered signing an amnesty bill for “Dreamers.”
“That is not a discussion that we are currently entertaining. I’m not going to sit here and negotiate on your network, as much as I’d like to, on behalf of the president. That’s for him to make final determination on but that’s not something we are entertaining.”
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