WASHINGTON: Presi­dent Donald Trump stepped up his tough talk on immigration on Tuesday, saying he wants to deploy the US military to stop illegal immigrants at the border with Mexico until a long-promised wall is completed and “proper security” is in place.

Trump, who earlier threatened to halt US foreign aid to Honduras and other countries unless they stopped a “caravan” of Central American migrants headed to the United States, called use of the military at the southern border “a big step”.

President Trump has railed against more than 1,200 Central American mig­­rants who are on a 3,200-km journey from the Mexico-Guatemalan border, and reiterated threats to derail the North American Free Trade Agreement if they are not stopped.

“We’re going to have to have to include security in Nafta,” Trump told reporters at the White House. He lamented what he called “horrible” US laws that left the southern border poorly protected.

Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2018