Donald Trump rules out end to US govt shutdown till Congress approves funds to build border wall with Mexico

Washington: US president Donald Trump on Tuesday ruled out an end to the partial government shutdown till the Congress approve funds for building a wall along the Mexican border to prevent entry of illegal immigrants. Democrats and some Republicans have rejected Trump’s demand for the US-Mexico border, after which he refused to sign a wider spending bill last week, temporarily stripping funding from swaths of the government. “I can’t tell you when the government is going to reopen…(Not until) we have a wall, a fence, whatever they would like to call it. I’ll call it whatever they want. But it’s all the same thing. It’s a barrier from people pouring into our country…a barrier from drugs,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. [caption id=“attachment_5237241” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Donald Trump. AP[/caption] “There is a problem in this world today called human trafficking… We are not going to let that take place. We are working so hard to catch these traffickers… We can’t do it without a barrier… without a wall. It’s my hope to have this done, completed — all 500 to 550 miles — to have it either renovated or brand new by election time,” he said. The Trump administration is seeking more than $5 billion for the construction of the wall at the border with Mexico. He said progress has been made in building a wall in some places, including, in California, which has been “difficult to deal with because of the governor”. The people of San Diego wanted the wall built, he asserted, adding, “People were walking through Mexico right into San Diego, right over people’s front lawns by the hundreds, by the thousands. And they came to us, they asked for a wall…A drone isn’t going to stop it.”