“The Democrats stand in our way - they want people to pour into our country unchecked....CRIME! We will be taking strong action today," President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images Trump teases impending 'strong action' on border security

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that his administration “will be taking strong action today” to address what he complained are especially weak border security protections that must be addressed by Congress and the construction of a border wall.

“Our Border Laws are very weak while those of Mexico & Canada are very strong. Congress must change these Obama era, and other, laws NOW!” Trump wrote on Twitter. “The Democrats stand in our way - they want people to pour into our country unchecked....CRIME! We will be taking strong action today.”


Trump’s online post, which did not come with further details as to what steps his administration would take, came one day after he announced that he would deploy U.S. troops to guard the southern border with Mexico until his promised border wall is completed.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said later Tuesday that Trump’s plan would mobilize the National Guard, which his two immediate predecessors had also done along the U.S.-Mexico border, and also press Congress to take steps to close “loopholes” in the nation’s immigration laws. Sanders did not say when or how many troops Trump would mobilize or where they would be deployed.

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The president has been especially preoccupied with border security this week, seemingly agitated by a group of migrants, mostly from Honduras, that was making its way north through Mexico, past immigration checkpoints and military bases, en route to the U.S. Trump said Tuesday that that group had been broken up by Mexican authorities, who he said did so only after he demanded they act.

More broadly, Trump has struggled to get traction in Congress for his border security priorities, namely that the border wall he promised during the 2016 campaign would be paid for by Mexico. Democrats have thus far been largely unwilling to go along with plans for the president’s wall. Trump has complained loudly about what he has called their obstructionism and has urged the Senate GOP leadership to do away with the chamber’s legislative filibuster, something Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed never to do.