'Illegal border crossings at lowest ever': Trump in US Congress address

Drawing a comparison with former President Joe Biden, Donald Trump claimed that under the former's presidency, there were hundreds of thousands of illegal crossings a month

In his first address to a joint session of the Congress on Tuesday (local time), US President Donald Trump spoke elaborately on his administration's stringent immigration policies. He claimed that it was due to his warnings that the number of illegal border crossings has come down significantly.

 

"They heard my words and chose not to come," Trump said. Recalling the first day of his presidency, Trump claimed that "within hours of taking the oath of office, he declared a national emergency on the Southern Border and deployed the US military to "repel the invasion of our country."

 

Calling it "the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history," Trump claimed that in the past month, the number of illegal crossings in the US was at its lowest ever. Trump credited this feat to the deployment of the border patrol and the military agents to counter "border invasion."

 

Calling his predecessor Joe Biden the "worst president in America's history," Trump claimed that hundreds of thousands of illegal crossings a month were witnessed during the previous administration.

 

"Over the past four years, 21 million people poured into the United States and many of them were murderers, human traffickers, gang members of the criminals from the streets of the dangerous cities, throughout the world," he said.  Slamming Biden further, Trump stated, "Joe Biden didn’t just open our borders, he flew illegal aliens over them to overwhelm our schools, hospitals, and communities throughout the country. Entire towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, buckled under the weight of the migrant occupation and corruption like nobody’s ever seen before."

 

Ever since Trump took charge of the office, he has implemented several strict measures aimed to curb illegal immigration, one of which is using military aircraft to repatriate arrested migrants to their country of origin. Among those repatriated to their country of origin were Indians, who were handcuffed and chained.

 

Laken Riley honoured

 

Trump also thanked his border czar Tom Homan and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for their work on improving border security. He then honoured Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela in the US.

 

Riley's story became a cry for Republicans on the campaign trail, declaring that "America will never forget her." The President added that the murderers of Laken Riley were members of the Venezuelan prison gang, following which he designated them as "foreign terrorists organisations."