Donald Trump Signs Order To Build A Wall On The Mexican Border

US President Donald Trump took a first step toward fulfilling his pledge to “build a wall” on the Mexican border Wednesday, signing two immigration-related decrees. Trump visited the Department of Homeland Security to approve an order to begin work to “build a large physical barrier on the southern border,” according to the White House. 

Trump also signed measures to “create more detention space for illegal immigrants along the southern border” according to White House spokesman Sean Spicer.

“We’re going to once again prioritize the prosecution and deportation of illegal immigrants who have also otherwise violated our laws,” he added.

Stemming immigration was a central plank of Trump’s election campaign. His signature policy prescription was to build a wall across the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) border between the United States and Mexico.

Some of the border is already fenced, but Trump says a wall is needed to stop illegal immigrants entering from Latin America.

Trump again promised “100 percent” to make Mexico pay for the wall, something the Mexican government has repeatedly said it will not do.

“Ultimately it will come out of what’s happening with Mexico, we’re going to be starting those negotiations relatively soon. And we will be, in a form, reimbursed by Mexico,” he told ABC.

“All it is, is we will be reimbursed at a later date from whatever transaction we’ll make from Mexico.”

“I’m just telling you, there will be a payment, it will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form.”

“What I’m doing is good for the United States, it’s also going to be good for Mexico. We want to have a very stable, very solid Mexico”

Trump aides have weighed hiking border tariffs or border transit costs as one way to “make Mexico pay.” Another threat is to finance the wall by tapping into remittances that Mexican migrants send home, which last year amounted to $25 billion.

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray and the country’s economy minister are currently in Washington to prepare a visit by President Enrique Pena Nieto scheduled for January 31.

“There are very clear red lines that must be drawn from the start,” Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo told the Televisa network in Mexico just ahead of the trip.

(AFP)