President Donald Trump knocked Democratic immigration policy in a forceful speech defending his zero tolerance policy, which prosecutes everyone who illegally crosses the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump lamented that Democrats do not yet appear willing to accept his administration’s legislative immigration priorities saying, “hey don’t want to give it because Democrats love open borders. But the whole world come in,” adding their position is “we have open borders. And they view that possibly intelligently except that it’s destroying our country. They view that as potential someday, they’re going to go vote for Democrats.”
Trump made a similar suggestion in a Tuesday morning tweet:
Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2018
Trump’s speech defending the practice comes as his administration is criminally prosecuting anyone who enters the U.S. illegally. The criminal prosecution results in a brief separation of illegal family units and has drawn immense criticism from the media and Democratic lawmakers.
Trump and the White House have instead said that if Congress wants the practice to end, they must instead pass his preferred immigration legislation through Congress, which would fund his border wall, end chain migration and end the diversity visa lottery system.