Joint Base Andrews

Prince George’s County, Maryland

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Today is a momentous day in the life of our nation as the American people watch President Trump pay tribute to the heroes that stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, 75 years ago. And today, it will be my great honor to travel to Bedford, Virginia — the community that lost more soldiers per capita on D-Day than any other community in America. I’ll be speaking before the National D-Day Memorial. It’ll be my great honor to pay tribute to those great heroes as well.

But in the midst of that, as President Trump has made clear, we have a crisis on our southern border. Last week, the President took decisive action to call on Mexico to do more. In the month of May alone, the American people learned yesterday, 144,000 people were apprehended attempting to cross our southern border.

The time has come for Mexico to do more to stem the tide of illegal immigrants that are making their way north from Central American through Mexico and coming into our country. And the President has taken a strong stand. We’ll continue to take that strong stand until Mexico takes such action as is necessary to address this crisis and bring this crisis of illegal immigration at our border to an end.

At the President’s direction, we welcomed the Mexican delegation to the White House yesterday. We’re grateful that the Mexican delegation came forward with proposals. It was a good discussion. We welcome what Mexican put on the table — but, as the President said yesterday, it’s not nearly enough. A hundred and forty-four thousand people apprehended in the month of May. A hundred thousand of those apprehended are families — people that are bringing children in the hopes of being able to exploit the loopholes in our immigration laws.

And our message to the Mexican delegation and our message to the Mexican government is the time has come for Mexico to act decisively to work with the United States of America to assist us in enforcing our laws by enforcing their laws, by securing their border. And we made clear to them that President Trump is going to continue to stand firm until we bring this crisis of illegal immigration at our southern border to an end.

Discussions will continue today at the State Department. The Secretary of State’s team, as well as White House officials, will be meeting with the Mexican delegation.

But again, I say: The meeting yesterday was positive. We welcomed the efforts of the Mexican officials to offer solutions to the crisis at our southern border, but we need Mexico to do more. And our hope is, as these discussions continue, that Mexico will step up, will take such action that is necessary to address what the American people know is a real humanitarian and security crisis at the southern border of the United States.

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