President Trump on Tuesday declared victory in his battle to build a wall on the southern border when he visited and ripped the newly built structure in Yuma, Ariz, in what he described as a “deadly” immigration plan by his Democratic rival Joe Biden .
“You don’t hear about the wall anymore because we won,” Trump said in comments at the wall.
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There are now about 2017 miles of walls built since 2017, and officials told Trump on the site that they expect to complete 300 miles by the end of next week.
The wall was a highly controversial, but central, proposal from Trump’s 2016 campaign, and has faced a number of major obstacles in Congress and the courts – the administration has run into funding problems by repaying Pentagon funding.
Critics have argued that most of the walls are in areas where structures were already in place – but administration officials note that the new structure is significantly different from the old barriers to landing mat styles until the Trump -tiidrek. The new structure includes 18-foot-high steel bolts with anti-climb measures, lighting and cameras to help the people trying to cross the border.
Trump also greeted the walls at a campaign event near the border visit, where he spoke with supporters.
“That big part of the wall already built, you can not get through it, you can not get through it, you can climb Mount Everest and you will have a very hard time getting over that sucker,” he said.
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The construction of the wall has coincided with a steep decline of intersections at the border, although they have increased in recent months. The wall is accompanied by other policies to curb illegal immigration, including the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) and asylum agreements with countries in the Northern Triangle.
This year, the administration quickly returned asylum seekers and illegal immigrants on a mandate from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) arising from the coronavirus crisis. It has also sought to scrape “sanctuary cities” in which detainees of federal immigration enforcement are ignored.
Trump has sought to draw a contrast with the presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s immigration plan, which calls for measures including a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and a moratorium on deportations.
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“Joe Biden is the puppet of the radical left wing movement that seeks the complete elimination of the borders and frontiers of America,” Trump said. “They want to take the wall down, they don’t want borders, they want sanctuary cities.”
President Donald Trump arrives to speak to a crowd of supporters at Yuma International Airport on Tuesday, August 18, 2020, in Yuma, Ariz. (AP Photo / Matt York)
Trump was able to pronounce the distinction of the National Border Patrol Council prior to the speech, which he had also endorsed in 2016. He said dangerous bands such as MS-13 were in the pipeline, claiming that a Biden gain would be a ‘jailbreak’ “For the gang.
Trump warns supporters that a Biden plan “would release a flood of illegal immigration”
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‘Biden’s plan is the most radical extreme, reckless, dangerous and deadly immigration plan proposed by a major party candidate – it must be defeated and it will be defeated on November 3,’ he said.
Trump speaks hours before the second night of the Democratic National Convention, where Trump’s immigration policy is expected to be strongly criticized again. Trump will speak at the Republican National Convention next Thursday.
