President Donald Trump, with his threat to shut down the U.S-Mexico border, is sending a message to Mexico that it must do more to help with the migrant caravan situation, former acting ICE Director Thomas Homan said Friday.
"I think President Trump is sending a message, if this gets out of control, 'I will shut the border down and make Mexico, event though Mexico assists us by offering asylum to a few thousand of their people, maybe they'll patrol their southern border more and stop these caravans from coming in,'" Homan told Fox News' "Fox and Friends."
Trump also has threatened to shut down the government if border wall financing is not approved by Congress, and Homan Friday blamed the migrant caravan at the southern border to Congress' failure to take action on immigration.
"If anybody wants to put blame on what's going on on the border, it's Congress," said Homan. "They need to look in the mirror. They have failed the American people...They have failed to raise the bar for asylum and failed to give ICE enough beds to they don't have to catch and release. Failed to many times before."
Meanwhile, if there is not a hard response from the U.S. government, there will be more caravans, Homan warned.
"We have got to act decisively," he said. "We have the right president to do that."
He added that he think Mexico has has not done all it could do because there is a new incoming president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, taking office soon.
"I hope they take a look at this and defend the border," said Homan. "They are a sovereign country too. The Mexican citizens have had enough of it also."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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