During his first appearance in the White House press briefing room — where he did not take a single question from reporters — President Trump trotted out several border patrol agents in front of reporters and asked them to illustrate the importance of physical barriers at the border.
Trump claimed the meeting with the agents was previously scheduled, and just happened to come “at a very opportune time.” Each of the officers who spoke thanked the President for advocating for his promised border wall and waxed eloquent about border security — by echoing Trump’s rhetoric.
“I just want to talk about some of those criminals that border patrol agents apprehend on a daily basis,” one agent, Hector Garza, who is also the vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, said. “We’re talking about murderers, rapists, people who commit very serious crimes in this country. I.C.E. Has been doing an amazing job and deporting a lot of these people back to the country. Unfortunately, once we deport these people, these people will not stay in their country. These criminal aliens that have been released from jail that have been deported will come right back into the United States. However, if we had a physical barrier, if we had a wall, we would be able to stop them.”
After the agents spoke, Trump suggested that because the economy — under his leadership — had improved so significantly, more people were trying to enter the U.S. illegally.
“We’re doing great as a country, but the better we do, the more people want to come in,” he said, adding that he and the agents he met with agreed that “without a wall you cannot have border security.”
“Without a very strong form of barrier, call it what you will, but without a wall you cannot have border security,” he said. “It won’t work.”
The publicity stunt comes as the government approaches its second week of a partial shutdown, which Trump forced when he demanded a spending bill that included funds for his border wall.
