(KGTV) - President Trump announced Wednesday his administration will move forward in building his long-promised border wall in San Diego after saying local residents want it.
The president made the following remarks during a cabinet meeting at the White House:
“We have a lot of things going on within our country. We’ve very much toughened up the border, but the laws are horrible. The laws in this country for immigration and illegal immigration are absolutely horrible. And we have to do something about it -- not only the wall, which we’re building sections of wall right now. We have $1.6 billion. We’re fixing a lot of wall that basically is non-existent because it’s been ripped to pieces. It was poorly built and it wasn’t -- it was really only temporary, in some cases.
San Diego has asked us to go forward with their section of the wall in California. And rather than not doing that and letting them lobby for us with Governor Brown, we decided to do it. And we’ll have a little bit less of a lobby, but we’ll have a lot of people happy in San Diego.”
San Diego officials have not yet commented on the president's statements.
In March, Trump visited the San Diego area to view border wall prototypes in Otay Mesa. During his tour, he told the media, “A part of San Diego needs a wall, they want a wall desperately. They’re willing to do anything to get it. I said, ‘Nope, approve the whole wall, California.’”
Then, in an April 13 tweet, the president said that San Diego was “pushing really hard” to have a border wall built.
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“Tremendous pressure is building, like never before, for the Border Wall and an end to crime cradling Sanctuary Cities. Started the Wall in San Diego, where the people were pushing really hard to get it. They will soon be protected!” the president tweeted.
Days later, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted in favor of supporting the Trump administration’s lawsuit against the state of California over its sanctuary laws. Trump applauded the move, thanking the county for “defending the rule of law and supporting our lawsuit against California’s illegal and unconstitutional ‘Sanctuary’ policies."
The federal lawsuit claims California’s so-called “sanctuary city” policies are unconstitutional and undermine public safety.
Gov. Jerry Brown has likened the lawsuit to “basically going to war against the state of California.”
