KANSAS CITY - President Donald Trump urged Congress to fund more border security and law enforcement officials to continue working together to enforce immigration laws during Friday's visit to Missouri.
The United States Department of Justice hosted the 2018 Project Safe Neighborhoods National Conference at the Westin Crown Center in Kansas City earlier this week. Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) is a nationwide initiative that helps federal, state and local law enforcement officials, prosecutors and community leaders identify crime issues and develop solutions to address those problems, according to the department's website.
This cooperation is key when enforcing immigration laws, Trump said on the final day of the conference. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement works with state and local partners to "get some of the world's most violent criminals off our streets, and we get them the hell out of our country," he said.
"Removing these deadly poisons and vicious predators from our neighborhoods depends upon partnerships with local communities and their elected leaders and officials," he said.
ICE arrested more than 235,000 people living in the country illegally with criminal records since Trump took office, he said, adding those criminal records include assaults and murders. He said ICE and Border Patrol also seized more than 2.8 million pounds of illicit narcotics last year.
According to the Council of Economic Advisers, Trump said, illegal heroin cost the country $238 billion in 2016.
"We're talking about a wall for $15 billion, $20 billion - I could even do it cheaper," Trump said. "You're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars, and you're talking about a fraction (for the wall). You'd make it up in a month by having a proper wall."
Trump has previously requested Congress include $5 billion for border security.
Illegal immigration is "a threat to the well-being of every American community," Trump said, adding it overwhelms public resources and drains the federal treasury. "Congress must fully fund border security in the year-ending funding bill. We have to get this going."
He said another immigration issue involves sanctuary cities, which are municipalities that limit their cooperation with the federal government's effort to enforce immigration laws. Trump said these cities are "grave threats to public safety and national security."
United States Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker and former U.S. Attorney General and Missouri Gov. John Ashcroft also addressed conference attendees during the three-day conference.
While the PSN initiative launched in 2001, the Department of Justice announced its re-commitment to it in October.
Shortly before his Kansas City visit, Trump announced he would nominate William Barr as his next attorney general. Barr served as attorney general under former President George H.W. Bush.