Confirming earlier reports, President Donald Trump on Saturday announced a proposal to end his shutdown that includes $5.7 billion for his “border wall” in exchange for temporary protections for DACA and TPS recipients—a proposal one advocacy group deemed a “cynical ploy” issued by “a president who makes false claims about violence at the border and demonizes immigrants, regardless of status, at every opportunity.”
In his address from the White House, which began just after 4pm ET, Trump said the nearly $6 billion would allow for “steel barriers” in “high priority areas,” and asserted that “walls are the opposite of immoral.” In addition to the three-year reprieve for TPS recipients and uncertainty extension for Dreamers, his proposal includes over $800 million in “drug detection technology” and over 2,700 agents to further militarize the southern border.
