President Donald Trump sounded frustrated with the ongoing struggle to enforce the southern border but asserted that employers needed high skilled immigrants to fill jobs in the growing economy.

“Part of the problem that we have is that our economy is so strong,” Trump said about the growing number of illegal immigrants coming across the border. “People are pouring up to get into our economy, they want a piece of our economy. That makes the job even tougher.”

Trump made his remarks at the White House on Wednesday afternoon during a roundtable meeting with officials from California on the problems of illegal immigration.

But he emphasized that the United States was not opposed to immigration based on skills.

“We want people to come into our country based on merit. We’re not looking to keep them out, we need to bring them in. We need them,” he said.

Trump noted that multiple companies were coming back to the United States, even from Mexico.

But he repeated his call for tougher border control laws.

“We have worse laws than anywhere in the world for illegal immigration, there’s no place in the world that has laws that we do,” Trump said, criticizing legal loopholes like “catch and release.”