— President Trump arrived in this border town Thursday on a trip that he did not want to take to discuss a crisis that Democrats say does not exist, repeating his request for a long-promised border wall that has led to a bitter political impasse and a 20-day government shutdown. Flanked by Border Patrol officers, as well as Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, and a cache of drugs, cash and weapons seized by the authorities at the border, Mr. Trump again blamed the protracted shutdown affecting vast swaths of the federal government on Democrats. He reiterated an untrue claim that Mexico would indirectly pay for the wall through a revamped trade agreement, and heard from people who had loved ones killed by immigrants. “If we had a barrier of any kind, whether it’s steel or concrete,” Mr. Trump said of tragic stories involving violence and human trafficking, “they wouldn’t even bother trying. In remarks to reporters on Thursday, Mr. Trump did not rule out declaring a state of national emergency that could allow him to bypass Congress to fund the wall.

Source: New York Times January 10, 2019 13:07 UTC