President Trump said Wednesday that senior adviser Jared Kushner is working on a new immigration reform plan.
“We’ll talk to you about it soon. I think it’s very exciting, very important,” the president told reporters in an impromptu press conference that lasted nearly half an hour.
Trump made the remarks while speaking at a fundraising lunch in San Antonio with Texas officials and ranchers about safety concerns caused by illegal immigration from Mexico.
“Dangerous people are coming here and the good people are dying,” he said, describing the peril migrants pose to the ranchers and the measures ranchers must take to protect themselves.
“They raid their houses, and it’s very dangerous, and they’re told never to leave their house at night,” the president said. “And during the day, always carry a gun and know how to use it. And where they have their fences, never go near the gate unless you have two people, especially at night. And make sure both of you are carrying a weapon, a gun. And I said, ‘Nobody’s ever told me this.’ This doesn’t come out in the fake news.”
Trump’s meeting with the ranchers comes as record numbers of migrants are apprehended at the southern border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped more than 100,000 immigrants at the border in March alone.
The president has struggled to deal with the border crisis, including trying a policy that increased family separations. He said Tuesday that he does not plan to resume child separations.
[Read more: Mexican cartels divert border cops with migrant surges and ferry drugs where the coast is clear]
In his most recent attempt to deal with the border situation, Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and other high-ranking officials in the department.
The president has blamed Democrats in Congress for the surge in immigration, complaining about their failure to change problematic immigration laws.
“We are bucking really bad things in Congress, with the Democrats in Congress not willing to act,” he said Tuesday. “They want to have open borders, which means they want to have crime. They want to have drugs pouring into our country. They don’t want to act.”
