President Trump said on Tuesday that a government shutdown would be a “very small price to pay” in order to secure the border, following up on his threat of a government shutdown in September should Congress fail to include substantial border security funding in an upcoming spending package.

“I don’t care what the political ramifications are, our immigration laws and border security have been a complete and total disaster for decades, and there is no way that the Democrats will allow it to be fixed without a Government Shutdown......Border Security is National Security, and National Security is the long-term viability of our Country,” Trump wrote in a series of tweets Tuesday. “A Government Shutdown is a very small price to pay for a safe and Prosperous America!”



...Border Security is National Security, and National Security is the long-term viability of our Country. A Government Shutdown is a very small price to pay for a safe and Prosperous America! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2018



Trump said Monday, after he met with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, that he would have “no problem doing a shutdown” if border security wasn’t added to the mix. He also tweeted Monday that the rest of the world is “laughing at the stupidity of our immigration laws.”

A shutdown was narrowly avoided in March after Congress approved a $1.3 trillion spending package that would fund the government through the end of September. However, the spending measure did not address immigration and Trump said at the time, "I will never sign another bill like this again."

In recent months, the Trump administration has come under scrutiny for its "zero tolerance" policy to prosecute all illegal immigrants, which resulted in thousands of children being separated from their accompanying adults after being apprehended at the border.

In response, Trump signed an executive order last month to prevent the splitting up of apprehended immigrant families and the Trump administration announced last week that all eligible children who had been separated from their migrant families had been reunited in response to a federal judge's ruling. However, hundreds of kids are still without their guardians.