President Trump: 'I don't want immigrants that will be dependent on welfare'

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US could see 1 million illegal immigrants cross the southern border by the end of 2019

President Trump said in an interview released Monday that he does not want any immigrants to come to the United States who would be on welfare.

“I don’t want to have anyone coming in that’s on welfare,” Trump told Breitbart News.

“We owe a lot of money. We’re taking care of everybody in the world’s military. But now as you know I got over $100 billion from NATO countries," Trump said in the interview. "But that’s not enough, that’s not enough, we’re paying for massive portions of NATO."

[The Democrats will] take anybody into this country and we’re not allowing it.

— President Trump

Trump's comments came in response to questions citing a report by the Center for Immigration Studies that said "63 percent of households headed by a non-citizen reported that they used at least one welfare program" in 2014. However, some critics have challenged the numbers. The think tank describes itself as an "independent, non-partisan, non-profit, research organization" and has the slogan "low-immigration, pro-immigrant."

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Trump accused politicians and Democrats of being weak or having vested interests in allowing immigrants needing welfare assistance to come into the country.

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“We have a problem, because we have politicians that are not strong, or they have bad intentions, or they want to get votes, because they think if they come in they’re going to vote Democrat, you know, for the most part," Trump said.

Speaking about the Democrats, he added, “They’ll take anybody into this country and we’re not allowing it, but because of the success of the country economically, some people say—I blame myself, but that’s a good blame not a bad blame—but because of the country’s success and you need workers here.”

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He continued: “You do need workers. You have homes in Houston, and they can’t get people to build the homes—and lots of other places. But because of what’s happened, and because of the people coming up, they want them to come in and they don’t care how they come in.”

The president concluded: “I don’t like the idea of people coming in and going on welfare for 50 years, and that’s what they want to be able to do—and it’s no good.”