President Trump alleged that Honduras and Guatemala are sending “hardened criminals” in the migrant caravans that are traveling to the United States while speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon.
The president’s comments after the Trump administration announced a new plan to curb asylum claims. The plan would force migrants to apply for asylum in the first safe country they travel though, thus making them ineligible to travel through a country to get to the U.S. and apply there.
Guatemala’s Supreme Court blocked the president from signing the bill, and he was asked about it by a reporter Tuesday.
“We were sending hundreds of millions of dollars to — are you talking about Guatemala and Honduras? We were sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Guatemala and Honduras. We’re not going to send it anymore. We haven’t been sending it for the last year. Because they weren’t doing anything for us. They were forming caravans and they were sending them up. In those caravans you had some very bad actors,” Trump answered.
He went on to speculate about the ruling from Guatemala’s Supreme Court.
“All they did is send us up a lot of people, caused a lot of problems and a lot of the people in those caravans were criminals. Hardened criminals,” the president continued. “Dangerous people. And why not? Why would Honduras or Guatemala or El Salvador, why would they keep their criminals when you can put them into the caravan, lose them in a caravan and send them up to the United States. We take everybody. Because the Democrats don’t allow immigration laws that mean anything. It’s horrible. It’s horrible.”
