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Trump’s Plan To Make Mexico Pay For ‘The Wall’ Unveiled

By Jayce Wagner
Published on: 09:10 PST, Apr 5, 2016

Donald Trump’s border wall has been a big applause line for the Republican frontrunner, and as of today, the Trump campaign has released the official plan to “make Mexico pay” for the controversial border wall.

In a move that President Obama calls “wacky” and “impractical,” Donald Trump has stated throughout his campaign that he plans for Mexico to pay for his proposed – and very expensive – border wall, but until today it was just rhetoric. Trump’s plan for the Mexico border wall includes changes to trade deals with Mexico as well as a controversial new suggestion: monitoring all outgoing wire transfers of money to Mexico and seizing any and all money that is sent by non-citizens to family back in Mexico.

Essentially, the Trump border wall proposal centers on a couple provisions of the U.S. Patriot Act, reports NPR. If elected, Donald Trump will request that Mexico give the U.S. a one-time payment of $5 billion to $10 billion in order to forestall measures which would prevent any non-citizen from using a wire transfer to move money outside the country. The Trump wall plan states that many undocumented migrants get jobs in the U.S. to transfer money back home via wire transfer. The Trump plan would effectively put an end to that, pocketing any transfers of money from non-citizens in the United States to non-citizens outside of the United States.

President Obama addressed the Trump wall plan today, calling the proposed measures “wacky” and “impractical” which would drive even more undocumented immigrants to the United States. Donald Trump’s plan for the border wall would compel Mexico to contribute to the cost of the wall, or else suffer severe economic sanctions, which President Obama claims would cause a downturn in the Mexican economy, and in turn, causing more and more Mexican citizens to cross the border into the United States in order to escape a poor economy.

“It actually sends more immigrants north because they can’t find jobs,” President Obama commented today.

According to CNN, the memo released by the Donald Trump campaign includes a few other suggested provisions that could compel Mexico to chip in for the border wall which some analysts claim will cost much more than Trump’s proposed $10 billion. The Trump wall plan outlines new restrictions he would impose upon visas issued to Mexican citizens, as well as tariffs on imports from Mexico.

“We have the moral high ground here, and all the leverage. It’s time we use it in order to ‘Make America Great Again,'” said Trump in the border wall memo released today.

According to NPR the Trump plan suggests that Mexico receives around $24 billion a year in remittances from Mexican nationals working in the United States, which Trump’s proposed border wall plan would put an end to, costing Mexico more than the proposed cost of the border wall. Of course, Mexican officials continue to deny that they would agree to such a proposal, and President Obama held a press conference today to assuage any fears that Mexico may have about such measures going into effect in the future.

“We’ve got serious problems here, we’ve got big issues around the world,” President Obama said today, addressing the Donald Trump border wall plan.

Donald Trump has long been a proponent of tougher immigration enforcement; in the past he’s claimed the U.S. is being “taken advantage” of by Mexico.

“People expect the president of the United States and the elected officials in this country to treat these problems seriously, to put forward policies that have been examined, analyzed, are effective, where unintended consequences are taken into account,” President Obama commented today, discussing the Donald Trump border wall, reports ABC News.

[Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images]

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