Venting on Immigration, Trump Vows ‘No More DACA Deal’ and Threatens NAFTA

PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump, blaming Democrats and the Mexican government for an increasingly “dangerous” flow of unauthorized immigrants, unleashed a series of fiery tweets on Sunday in which he vowed “NO MORE DACA DEAL” and threatened to walk away from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Minutes after wishing the nation a happy Easter Sunday, Trump complained that “liberal” laws were preventing Border Patrol agents from doing their jobs, and said that Republicans should use the “nuclear option” to sidestep Democratic opposition in the Senate and enact “tough laws NOW.”

The president was apparently reacting to a “Fox and Friends” segment on immigration that had aired minutes before. In his tweets, Trump referred to “caravans” of immigrants heading toward the southern border — a subject that was addressed on the Fox program.

A group of hundreds of Central Americans has been traveling through Mexico toward the United States, where the immigrants hope to seek asylum or sneak across the border. A reporter for BuzzFeed has been traveling with the group as it makes its way north.

Asked what he meant by “no more DACA deal” as he headed into church in Palm Beach on Sunday morning, Trump said: “A lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of DACA. The Democrats blew it.”

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, gave temporary protected status to hundreds of thousands of young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. The program requires immigrants to have resided in the United States since 2007, meaning any crossing the border now would not be eligible.

Trump announced last year that he was ending the program, but courts have blocked his decision. He has been negotiating with Democrats on a legislative solution, but seemed in his tweet on Sunday to withdraw his support for such talks.

The president also turned his ire on Mexico, saying the country was “doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S.” He said Mexican leaders “must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA.”

“NEED WALL!” he added.