United States President Donald Trump on Friday called Pakistanis ‘people from Middle East’ in his argument to build a wall along his country’s Mexican border and step up the ante in a drawn-out battle with Congress over release of funds amid a government shutdown.
Trump flew to the Texas border with Mexico on Thursday to try to bolster his case for the border wall as the government shutdown tied to the issue stretched into its 20th day with no sign of new talks to resolve the impasse. The shutdown will be the longest in US history if it is still going on by Saturday.
Flanked by border agents who are going without paychecks Trump threatened to use emergency powers to bypass Congress to pay for the wall on the US-Mexico border. “We can declare a national emergency. We shouldn’t have to,” Trump told reporters. “This is just common sense.”
According to Daniel Dale, Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star, when a border patrol official told the US president that they had apprehended people from multiple countries including Pakistan, Trump asked, “How many Pakistanis?” The man said “two.”
Raul Ortiz, a local border patrol official, told Trump and reporters that 133 people from countries other than Mexico and those in central America — including India, Pakistan, China and Romania — had been apprehended in the stretch of territory around McAllen.
Standing along the Rio Grande dividing the US and Mexico, Trump said “a lot of the crime in our country is caused by what’s coming through here”, adding: “They came in last week or this week, from Pakistan and different people. They got them.”
The government shutdown has left a quarter of the federal government closed down and hundreds of thousands of federal employees without pay. A day after he stormed out of a meeting with Democratic leaders, Trump attacked them for refusing his demand, calling them harder to deal with than China.
Trump flew to the Texas border with Mexico on Thursday to try to bolster his case for the border wall as the government shutdown tied to the issue stretched into its 20th day with no sign of new talks to resolve the impasse. The shutdown will be the longest in US history if it is still going on by Saturday.
Flanked by border agents who are going without paychecks Trump threatened to use emergency powers to bypass Congress to pay for the wall on the US-Mexico border. “We can declare a national emergency. We shouldn’t have to,” Trump told reporters. “This is just common sense.”
According to Daniel Dale, Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star, when a border patrol official told the US president that they had apprehended people from multiple countries including Pakistan, Trump asked, “How many Pakistanis?” The man said “two.”
Raul Ortiz, a local border patrol official, told Trump and reporters that 133 people from countries other than Mexico and those in central America — including India, Pakistan, China and Romania — had been apprehended in the stretch of territory around McAllen.
Standing along the Rio Grande dividing the US and Mexico, Trump said “a lot of the crime in our country is caused by what’s coming through here”, adding: “They came in last week or this week, from Pakistan and different people. They got them.”
The government shutdown has left a quarter of the federal government closed down and hundreds of thousands of federal employees without pay. A day after he stormed out of a meeting with Democratic leaders, Trump attacked them for refusing his demand, calling them harder to deal with than China.
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