WASHINGTON, D.C., USA — Ahead of his "special announcement" Saturday on the government shutdown and the border, President Trump told reporters that "walls work," citing San Antonio's security improvement since putting up a wall.
"You look at different places," Trump told members of the media, "they put up a wall, no problem. You look at San Antonio, you look at so many different places. They go from one of the most unsafe cities in the country to one of the safest cities immediately. Immediately. It works, we have to put them up, and we will put them up. We've got to."
San Antonio, however, does not have a border wall and is 157 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump visited the Rio Grande Valley along the edge of the U.S.-Mexico border last week. During his visit, the president took part in a roundtable discussion on border security and met with Border Patrol agents stationed along the border.
Throughout the government shutdown, which has lasted nearly a month, Trump has insisted that a crisis exists at the border which would be fixed by a border wall.
During the president's visit, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told him the state will build a wall along parts of the U.S.-Mexico border if the federal government pays Texas back.