Trump pushes wall plan in US-Mexico border visit

President Donald Trump reached McAllen, Texas yesterday to push his demand for controversial US-Mexico border wall. The President is visiting the US-Mexico border for the first time amid an extended government shutdown with no deal in sight. Mr Trump said, more barriers on the frontier with Mexico are needed to protect the United States from the torrent of violent crime committed by illegal immigrants.

Opposition Democrats are refusing to approve 5.7 billion dollars in wall funding, saying that overwhelming numbers of illegal immigrants do not commit serious crimes and Mr Trump is promoting the project to satisfy his right-wing base. The standoff has



resulted in a partial government shutdown with hundreds of thousands of federal employees going without pay.

On arrival in Texas, President Trump tweeted that he will skip the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland if the ongoing partial shutdown of the government continues.

Meanwhile, Mexican authorities said yesterday that 21 bodies on the US-Mexican border had been found after a drug-gang shootout in a town near where President Donald Trump was due to visit later in the day. Mexico has been racked by drug-related violence in recent years.