WH: Trump hasn’t given up on Mexico paying for border wall

by Ben Kamisar - 01/09/18 3:45 PM ET

President Trump has not given up on his campaign pledge to have Mexico pay for the border wall despite a recent $18 billion request to Congress for funding to start the project.

When a reporter asked if Trump had abandoned that promise, pointing out that the president did not repeat his pledge while discussing the wall during a Monday speech in Tennessee, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders briefly replied, “No, he hasn’t.”

She went on to describe the wall as “one of the pieces” of a border security plan. But when pressed whether a wall would be a mandatory piece of any immigration deal, Sanders said that “border security does have to be part of this process.” {mosads}

“That’s part of the negotiation that we expect Congress to have,” she said of the specifics about the definition of border security.

“If Democrats aren’t in favor of protecting American citizens, we’ve hit a sad day in American history, but I don’t think that’s the case.”

Discussions over the wall have been a big sticking point in the negotiations to prevent a government shutdown, with Democrats ardent that the wall, the signature proposal from Trump’s campaign for president, is a non-starter. But the White House has so far signaled that the wall is an important part of its plan for border security, raising questions as to whether an agreement can be reached.

Trump and a group of bipartisan lawmakers had a positive meeting Tuesday at the White House. Participants agreed on the parameters of an immigration deal at the meeting.

The prongs of that hypothetical deal include protecting almost 1 million immigrants known as “Dreamers” who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children from deportation and increasing border security, as well as changing America’s diversity visa lottery program and policies about family-based migration.

Tags Donald Trump Donald Trump Dreamers Immigration US-Mexico Border Wall