US President Donald Trump signs two executive orders for construction of wall along Mexican border

Acting on his campaign promises, US President Donald Trump has signed two executive orders for construction of a wall along the Mexican border and speeding the deportation of undocumented immigrants even as he said “a nation without borders is not a nation”.

“A nation without borders is not a nation. Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders, gets back its borders,” Trump said yesterday as he signed two executive orders at the Department of Homeland Security.

“We are in the middle of a crisis on our southern border.  The unprecedented surge of illegal migrants from Central America is harming both Mexico and the US and I believe the steps we will take starting right now will improve the safety in both of our countries, going to be very, very good for Mexico,” Trump said.

He said the two executive orders will save thousands of lives, millions of jobs, and billions and billions of dollars.

“These two orders are part of an immigration reform we outlined during the campaign. I want to emphasise that we will be working in partnership with our friends in Mexico to improve safety and economic opportunity on both sides of the border,” Trump said.

Noting that he has deep admiration for the people of Mexico, he said he greatly look forward to meeting again with his Mexican counterpart.

“I’ll be doing that shortly. We will discuss close coordination on many, many important issues between our countries. This coordination includes the dismantling of cartels and keeping illegal weapons and cash from flowing out of America and into Mexico,” he said.

Trump said his executive order directs federal agencies to immediately start working on construction of a border wall.

“This will also help Mexico by deterring illegal immigration from Central America and by disrupting violent cartels networks,” he said.

“As I’ve said repeatedly to the country, we are going to get the bad ones out; the criminals and the drug deals and gangs and gang members and cartel leaders. The day is over when they can stay in our country and wreak havoc,” he said.

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“We are going to get them out and we’re going to get them out fast and (Homeland Security Secretary) John Kelly is going to lead that wave,” he added.

The other executive order, Trump said ends the policy of catch and release at the border, requires other countries to take back to their criminals, cracks down on sanctuary cities, empowers ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officers to target and remove those who pose a threat to public safety.

It also includes calls for the hiring of another 5,000 border patrol officers, calls for the tripling of the number of ICE officers.