It started off as an unusual Sunday morning. President Donald Trump seemed to be laying off his usual early morning tweets and simply sent a friendly message wishing his followers “HAPPY EASTER!” But it was only the calm before the storm because less than two hours later the commander in chief started going off on a rambling Twitter rant where the president seemed to announce one big change of policy and threatened a bilateral squabble. And all before most Americans sat down for breakfast.
The most newsworthy part of Trump’s Twitter rant is that he will apparently no longer support an effort to fix the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that would legalize millions of “dreamers,” or undocumented immigrants who arrived to the United States as children. He once again called on Republicans to pass tough new anti-immigrant laws by changing the rule of parliamentary procedure. He then proceeded to criticize Mexico and threatened to “stop” the North American Free Trade Agreement if Mexico does not “stop the big drug and people flows.”
Trump started his rant by warning that it is getting harder for Border Patrol agents to do their job “because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release” which is making the area “more dangerous.” He then warned of “Caravans” that are “coming,” meaning “Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!”
It seems Trump was—unsurprisingly—watching Fox News Sunday morning, which warned in a segment about “CARAVAN OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS HEADED TO U.S.” Recent stories have reported on hundreds of Central Americans marching toward the United States and the way in which Mexico is apparently not doing anything to stop them.
That appears to be why the president then proceeded to attack Mexico, saying it “is doing very little, if not NOTHING” to stop “people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S.” If Mexico continues to fail at stopping “the big drug and people flows,” Trump “will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!”
In a tweet that seems to suggest Trump may still not understand what DACA even consist of, he went on to note that the “big flows of people are all trying to take advantage of DACA. They want in on the act!” He reinforced that view as he walked into an Episcopal service with his wife Melania and daughter Tiffany. “A lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of DACA,” Trump told reporters. “They had a great chance. The Democrats blew it.”
