Trump May Shut Down the Border Today and he is "Dead Serious"

“It certainly isn’t a bluff.”

Washington (ANN/FOX)- On the heels of the U.S. cutting aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras over the weekend, Fox News reported that President Donald Trump could shut down the U.S.-Mexico border as early as Monday.

Fox News cited comments made by White House counselor to the president, Kellyanne Conway, on “Fox News Sunday.”

“President Trump is not bluffing, according to White House advisor Kellyanne Conway, who says that President Trump is “dead serious” about closing the border,” Fox News’ Griff Jenkins said Monday.

“It certainly isn’t a bluff,” she told Fox News host Chris Wallace when he asked if Trump was serious about closing the border this week. “You can take the president seriously, and here’s why. You’re giving those metrics. What he’s looking at is that 4,000 migrants apprehended in one day recently. We’re on track this month for close to 100,000.”

Conway said the U.S. has “never seen a surge like this coming from the Northern Triangle company (ph).”

“Some of these kids are already separated from their parents before they even arrive here,” she added. “Congress can fix this, Chris, in an hour.”

The Trump aide continued by referencing the Flores settlement, a decades-old legal case that limits how long and under which conditions U.S. officials are allowed to detain immigrant children. “They can give us a fix for the Flores agreement that a court said there’s only so much we can do,” Conway said. “We have 20 days and then we have to release unaccompanied minors into the interior. Congress can fix the problem of immigration they failed to fix. And this president is looking at the metrics.”

According to Conway, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, has characterized the situation at the border as a “meltdown.”

Trump blasted the three Central American nations of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras on Friday, accusing them of having “set up” migrant caravans to send north, Reuters reported. The president said there is a “very good likelihood” he’d shut down the U.S.-Mexico border this week if Mexico didn’t control the influx of immigrants heading into the country.

In tweets sent out late last week, Trump blamed Democrats and Mexico for the ongoing situation at the border.

"The DEMOCRATS have given us the weakest immigration laws anywhere in the World. Mexico has the strongest, & they make more than $100 Billion a year on the U.S. Therefore, CONGRESS MUST CHANGE OUR WEAK IMMIGRATION LAWS NOW, & Mexico must stop illegals from entering the U.S...."

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2019

The president warned he would be closing the border this week unless Mexico found a way to halt “ALL illegal immigration coming into the United States.”