President Trump used his first Oval Office address to make an impassioned case to the American people for stronger border security, saying there was a crisis on the border with Mexico, where drugs and criminals flow into the United States.
The situation on the southern border, he argued, was “a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul.”
“How much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job? To those that refuse to compromise in the name of border security, I would ask, imagine if it was your child, your husband, or your wife whose life was so cruelly shattered and totally broken,” the president said Tuesday.
“This is a humanitarian crisis,” Trump said. Trump called a wall “absolutely critical” to border security, but the wall, while the reason for his speech, was not itself frequently mentioned.
Entirely absent from the president’s speech was a declaration of a national emergency to divert funds to pay for a border wall, action Trump said over the weekend he was considering taking.
The remarks came as the partial government shutdown entered its third week after congressional Democrats and the White House reached an impasse over funding for the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump has requested from Congress $5.7 billion for a barrier, which Democrats refuse to fund.
During his address, Trump referenced brutal murders committed by illegal immigrants, including that of an Air Force veteran who was raped and killed and a Georgia resident who was killed, beheaded, and dismembered. The president also warned of the dangers of the gang MS-13, telling the American people that members of the gang stabbed and beat a 16-year-old girl.
“This is a choice between right and wrong, justice and injustice,” he said. “This is about whether we fulfill our sacred duty to the American citizens we serve.”
Trump also took aim at congressional Democrats, pinning the blame for the partial government shutdown over what he said was their opposition to border security, driven in part by their opposition to him.
The president noted that some Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., supported a physical barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border in the past.
“They changed their mind only after I was elected president,” he said. “Democrats in Congress have refused to acknowledge the crisis, and they have refused to provide our brave border agents with the tools they desperately need to protect our families and our nation.”
Trump’s promise for a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border dates back to the 2016 presidential campaign, when he vowed to build a wall that Mexico would pay for.
Mexico’s former president Enrique Pena Nieto, who left office last year, said repeatedly that the country would not pay for the wall. But Trump, in his address, said the structure would “very quickly pay for itself,” suggesting the reduction in illegal drugs, as well as a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada, should be part of the accounting.
“The cost of illegal drugs exceeds $500 billion a year — vastly more than the $5.7 billion we have requested from Congress,” he said. “The wall will also be paid for, indirectly, by the great new trade deal we have made with Mexico.”
Negotiations over a government spending bill continued over the weekend, with Democratic congressional staffers meeting with White House officials. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence will also head to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to attend the Senate GOP’s lunch.
The president said he invited congressional leaders to meet at the White House on Wednesday and is scheduled to travel to the southern border Thursday.
“Hopefully we can rise above partisan politics in order to support national security,” he said.
