President Trump says apprehensions of unauthorized immigrants on the U.S.-Mexico border has spiked in the past six months because of how he has strengthened the U.S. economy.
“People are pulling up because our economy is so good, I mean, unfortunately, it’s the only bad part about what we’re doing because everybody wants a piece of it and they’re willing to come up and take the risk and this tremendous danger,” Trump said during a Fox News interview with Maria Bartiromo that aired Sunday. “Our laws are so bad — the combination of having a great economy and having the weakest immigration laws anywhere in the world by far.”
The president referenced the government’s Friday announcement of a 3.2% gross domestic product growth rate in the first quarter of 2019. Trump said the United States has a shortage of workers and immigration programs must be tweaked to bring in immigrant workers with specific skills depending on the country’s needs.
“We have such great numbers and we have companies pouring in. The problem is we need workers and we’re doing a plan based on merit where people come in, Maria, based on merit so they can help us. They have skills. They have talent,” he said. “We have people coming in under these crazy laws that, I mean, if they need welfare, or if they need handouts for the next 50 years, they are almost incentivized. Those are the people that we’re supposed to be taking and we take as few as possible, I’ll tell you, but the way the laws are, it’s brutal.”
Trump blamed Congress, which was controlled by Republicans his first two years in office, for not changing immigration laws that he said entice people to travel to the U.S. and enter without permission.
In 2017 the Trump administration endorsed the RAISE Act by Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia, which would create a merit-based immigration system and eliminate the diversity visa lottery. The legislation was reintroduced earlier this month.
Trump confirmed the White House is working with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on a comprehensive immigration reform package that also addresses asylum reforms, which Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., said is the underlying cause for the record-high number of families are traveling to the U.S.
