Trump Says He Won’t Sign `Dreamers’ Bill Without Money for Wall

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said he won't back any immigration bill out of Congress that doesn't include both funding for a wall and increased border security, as some Republican lawmakers try to force a vote on a measure designed to shield young people from deportation.

"Unless it includes a wall, and I mean a wall, a real wall, and unless it includes very strong border security, there'll be no approvals from me, because I have to either approve it or not," Trump said during an interview on the Fox News program “Fox & Friends.” "There is a mood right now to get better, stronger border security."

House Republican leaders are making a last-ditch effort to work out an agreement on immigration legislation that allows some individuals who were brought to the U. S. as children -- known as ‘dreamers' -- to be deferred from deportation.

Trump's comments came in a taped interview aired Thursday in which he also called the violent street gang MS-13 "stone-cold killers.”

Trump has sought to use the specter of brutal crimes committed by MS-13 members to advance his proposals to build a wall on the Mexican border and limit legal immigration to the U.S. But he has struggled to persuade Congress to provide much money for a wall or to agree to immigration restrictions.

He has said recently that he may allow the government to shut down at the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30, if Congress doesn't approve substantially more money for the border wall. He has often complained that other countries -- especially Mexico -- don't do enough to limit migration to the U.S., and he said on Wednesday that he is developing a plan to possibly cut aid to those countries.

To contact the reporter on this story: Terrence Dopp in Washington at tdopp@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Derek Wallbank at dwallbank@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Wasserman, Terrence Dopp

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