Trump threatens to close the border 'next week' if Mexico doesn't 'immediately stop ALL illegal immigration' coming into the US

• President Donald Trump threatened to close the US-Mexico border in a tweetstorm on Friday. 
• Trump said if Mexico didn't stop all illegal immigration into the US, he would close the southern border or "large sections of it" as soon as next week.
• The president said closing the border "would be a good thing."
• Experts have warned that closing the US-Mexico border could cost the US economy billions of dollars. 

President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to close the southern border "next week" if Mexico doesn't stop "all" undocumented immigration into the US. 

In a series of tweets, the president accused Democrats of giving the US the "weakest" immigration laws "anywhere" in the world. He further contended that "Mexico has the strongest, & they make more than $100 Billion a year on the U.S."

"Therefore, CONGRESS MUST CHANGE OUR WEAK IMMIGRATION LAWS NOW, & Mexico must stop illegals from entering the U.S. through their country and our Southern Border," Trump went on to say. "If Mexico doesn't immediately stop ALL illegal immigration coming into the United States through our Southern Border, I will be CLOSING the Border, or large sections of the Border, next week."

Trump added it would be "so easy" for Mexico to accomplish this, adding, "but they just take our money and 'talk.'"

Read more: 4 reasons the number of families crossing the US-Mexico border illegally is soaring, and how Trump may have made the problem worse

The president said closing the border "would be a good thing" because of the money he claims the US loses "with them, especially when you add in drug trafficking etc."

Experts have warned that closing the US-Mexico border could cost the US economy billions of dollars due to the commerce that occurs across it every single day. 

Read more: Hundreds of migrants are being detained under a bridge in El Paso amid a surge of families crossing the border. Border Patrol agents say there's nowhere else to put them.

This is not the first time Trump has threatened to close the border, and it comes not long after the president vetoed a bipartisan, bicameral rebuke of his national emergency declaration to obtain funding for a border wall.

The House failed to overturn Trump's veto in a vote earlier this week. 

There's been a surge in illegal border crossings by migrant families in recent weeks, prompting the Department of Homeland Security to urge Congress to pass new laws to make it easier to detain migrants. The surge may have been inspired by Trump's hawkish immigration policies, according to what some Customs and Border Protection officials and Border Patrol agents have told The New York Times and tThe Washington Post.

Hundreds of migrant families are currently being detained in a fenced-in enclosure under the Paso del Norte port of entry in El Paso, Texas.

 

The Trump administration has been slammed by the UN, human rights groups, and activists for its approach to immigration - particularly a "zero tolerance" policy that led thousands of children to be separated from their families at the border. 

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