President Trump will visit a Border Patrol station in Yuma, Ariz., Tuesday afternoon, the White House confirmed to the Washington Examiner on Monday.
The trip marks the first time Trump will return to the southern border town as president. He visited the Laredo, Texas border line in July 2015, weeks after announcing his campaign for president.
Trump will tour the border’s central point of operations in Yuma from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. local time, and will be briefed on Border Patrol operation results, policy initiatives, and employee morale. He will also get a hands-on look at the agency’s border equipment.
The president will be joined by former Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, his current White House chief of staff; White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller; Homeland Security chief of staff Kirstjen Nielsen; director of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council, Andrew P. Bremberg; and assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Tom Bossert.
Trump, who promised to make Mexico pay for a full-length wall along the southwestern border, plans to issue a private statement to border employees at the conclusion of the border crossing tour.
Two White House officials said the trip out west, just hours before he rallies supporters in Phoenix, is meant to reiterate the administration’s stalwart approach to immigration and deter Central American migrants from making the trek north when they will be turned away by immigration agents.
“If you come here, you will be apprehended, detained, and deported,” one official said. “The president believes that securing the border will save lives.”
Among Trump’s first executive actions in January, he signed two items that instructed all immigration policies to be fully carried out and mandated a southern border wall.
While he led DHS, Kelly oversaw the enforcing of policies that the Obama administration had allowed cities and localities to ignore, including the allowance of local law enforcement not to cooperate with ICE detainer requests.
Trump will also speak with Homeland Security officials about advancing Kate’s Law, No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, border wall funding, and money for 15,000 additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents.
