“Why isn’t Donald Trump focused on our northern border? I’ll give you three guesses but you’ll only need one.”
by: Jon Queally,
US President Donald Trump takes questions during a press conference on the COVID-19, coronavirus, outbreak at the White House in Washington, DC on February 29, 2020. – The number of novel coronavirus cases in the world rose to 85,919, including 2,941 deaths, across 61 countries and territories by 1700 GMT on Saturday, according to a report gathered by AFP from official sources. (Photo: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
While the first death tied directly to the coronavirus in the United States was confirmed as taking place overnight in Washington state, which shares a border with Canada, critics say President Donald Trump on Saturday again revealed his racist and xenophobic obsessions by confirming earlier reports that his administration is considering closing the U.S.-Mexico border as a way to stem the spread of the virus.
Aaron Rupar✔@atrupar · Feb 29, 2020Replying to @atrupar
REPORTER: You used the word “hoax” to talk about this last night. Do you regret that?
TRUMP: “No no no. ‘Hoax’ referring to the action [Dems] take to try and pin this on somebody, because we’ve done such a good job.”
“We have received a lot of power on the southern border over the last couple years from the courts” — Trump says he’s considering closing the southern border in response to coronavirus (no cases have come from Mexico)4947:22 PM – Feb 29, 2020
“There are five times as many confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Canada as Mexico,” tweeted Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). “Why isn’t Donald Trump focused on our northern border? I’ll give you three guesses but you’ll only need one.”
President Trump says he is thinking very hard about possibly closing the southern border of the United States with Mexico in response coronavirus.
Note: Trump didn’t mention possibly closing the northern border with Canada.
Reuters reported early on Saturday, citing a pair of U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials, that the Trump administration “is considering imposing entry restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border to control the spread of the coronavirus” into the country. According to Reuters:
Mexico’s government said on Friday it had detected three cases of coronavirus infection in three men who had all recently traveled to Italy, making the country the second in Latin America to register the fast-spreading virus.
The concern over containing the virus at the southern U.S. border comes as the Trump administration also weighs possible restrictions on the entry of travelers from South Korea, Italy and Japan.
Asked by a second reporter at the White House press conference why he was focusing on the Mexico border, Trump said he would consider closing any border that was necessary and acknowledged that the threat of coronavirus coming from Mexico did not appear to be a significant problem at this time.
At a rally in South Carolina on Friday night, Trump connected the threat of coronavirus into what he calls the “open border” policies of the Democrats, who have continued to criticize Trump over his handling of the virus as well as his history of cruel border policies and racist comments aimed at people from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America.
“Whether it’s the virus that we’re talking about, or the many other public health threats, the Democrat policy of open borders is a direct threat to the health and wellbeing of all Americans,” Trump said.Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
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