(Image source from: USA Today)
Days after the United States President Donald Trump has said he wants people to enter the country with merit and not sneak inside the border illegally, he yet again warned that there will be consequences for illegally coming into the U.S.
In an interview with CBS News' '60 Minutes', Trump said that America's immigration laws have turned into a laughing stock globally and he wants it to be changed.
"Really what we want to do is change the immigration laws, because they were a laughing stock all over the world," he said, a day after he pushed for merit-based immigration.
The move to make people enter into the U.S. based on merit can help technology professionals from countries such as India.
Related content: People Have to Enter our Country Legally, Not Illegally: Donald Trump
Asked whether the Trump administration would reckon to reintroduce some form of its family separation policy, which forcibly separated migrant children from their parents for months, he said he wanted "all the laws changed."
"There have to be consequences for coming into our country illegally. And part of the reason, I have to blame myself, the economy is so strong that everybody wants to come into the United States," he said in the interview.
The Washington Post on Friday reported that the White House was reconsidering a policy known as "zero tolerance" that caused nearly 3,000 children to be taken from their caregivers and placed in federal custody after they were apprehended crossing the border earlier this year.
Trump, a day early at a rally in Kentucky, accused the Democrats of encouraging a policy that lets illegal immigrants come in.
"The only immigration policy Democrats support is catch and release. How about that one? You catch a criminal thug, you take their name, and then you release them, say please show up in five years to court. Now, number one, it's ridiculous. Number two, they never show up. What a mess," he said.
"We have the dumbest immigration laws in the world. The world laughs at us, but we're getting them changed," he told his cheering supporters.
The new platform of the Democrat Party, he alleged, is radical socialism and it is open borders.
"Democrats want to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and they want to turn America into a giant sanctuary for criminal aliens and MS-13 thugs," he said.
"Republicans believe our country should be a sanctuary for law-abiding Americans, not criminal aliens," he said.
"One by one, we are finding the illegal alien criminals, predators, drug dealers, MS-13 killers, and we are sending them back home. We are liberating America's cities and towns. That's what we're doing," Trump said.
"I want people to come into our country on a merit-based system. And I want them to help all of the great companies that are moving back into the United States. They're moving to Michigan, they're moving to Ohio, they're moving to Pennsylvania, they're moving to North and South Carolina. They're coming in. They're moving to Florida. And, yes, they're moving into Kentucky," Trump said.
By Sowmya Sangam
