His Easter Sunday comments on Twitter came in apparent response to the movement of hundreds of Central Americans across Mexico in a “migrant viacrucis” (“way of the cross”) caravan headed for the US border.
“They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!”
About 1,500 migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, including entire families, set off on March 25 from the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
“These big flows of people are all trying to take advantage of DACA. They want in on the act!” Trump said, referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
Trump repealed the Obama-era program, which protects immigrants who arrived in the country without documents as children, but it is currently tied up in the courts.
His attempts to reach a compromise with Democrats on DACA — in return for funding for a Mexico border wall — have so far failed.
His administration is also re-negotiating the terms of NAFTA, the 1994 trade accord with Canada and Mexico, which he has threatened to scrap.
