Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday that President Trump closing the southern border with Mexico would be “absurd” and warned that such a move would hurt millions of Americans.
During a Fox News interview Wednesday, Gingrich urged Trump to not shut down the border. Many American families’ economic well-being depends on legal access through the border, including many of the nation’s agriculture producers and American-made exporters, he said.
“I would strongly urge the president not to try to shut down the border,” Gingrich said. “We have so many people every day who go back and forth. We have so much economic goods on both sides. It would truly be a mess, and it would frankly mess up the very economy he’s proud of. You’d have tremendous side effects from closing the border.”
[Related: Avocado prices surge as Trump threatens to close border with Mexico]
Trump said on Tuesday that he would be looking into closing the southern border if he cannot get a comprehensive immigration reform package that includes full funding for the wall through Congress. “Mexico is now stopping people coming in … let’s see if they keep it up,” Trump said. “If they don’t or if we don’t make a deal with Congress, the border’s going to be closed. A hundred percent.”
Gingrich, who is a vocal supporter of Trump’s, also ribbed Democrats for their honesty on the border situation, mock-applauding the likes of White House hopeful Julian Castro, D-Texas.
“The truth is the Democratic Party is the open border party,” Gingrich said. “They would welcome any number of immigrants. They would no longer be illegal because the border would be open.”
Trump declared a national emergency at the border in February after Congress neglected to grant him his requested funding for a border wall. The executive order allowed the White House to shift executive funds from other agencies into the construction of the wall and is being challenged in the courts by 16 states.
