keen on doing, while he discusses what a real crisis we have at the border. the last point i d make no one is talking about which is this puts incredible pressure on congressional republicans to come up with something while they still have the majority, to pass some kind of immigration law that clearly they have no intention of doing. ron, if you look at the history of this going back two administrations, it s always set against a backdrop of either a failed comprehensive immigration bill or some demonstration of force to be able to get something. right. lo look, he s in the position of rejecting a daca deal for the border wall because he also wanted reductions in legal immigration where he s unlikely to have any legislative progress on this key campaign promise. he s moving juunilaterally to sd a signal in the same direction. the idea that there is a crisis, though, just simply does not hold up. yes, there is an uptick in march. but if you look at the bigger
governing. i will say this, what we know is they ve been talking about syria all along. this is not a new discussion. he s heard from advisers, the different ones that have come an gone about why we must remain in syria and the handoff to local forces in iraq is a subject that s not comparable to what our situation is in syria. what s interesting here is that we know from president trump, there s two themes he always strikes. he likes victories and doesn t like the feeling that other companies are ripping us off. rhetorically i think he s going to continue to keep talking about the idea that we should leave while the most important part of the reporting is that secretary of defense mattis has not drawn up any official withdrawal plans. real quick, connect the dots. troops at the border, tariffs on china, withdrawing from syria, it is a reminder this insular nationalism is so central to his world view and many of the restrangts on it, the voices of the traditional republican internati
doing, they are staying in mexico given that they have permission. i spoke with one man from guatemala yesterday who said, look, i don t like the situation in the u.s., i don t want to go there. i m going to stay in mexico, and he is afraid of what president trump said. but the overwhelming majority, alisyn, they re saying, huh-uh, can t stop us. that s the goal. that s where we re going, u.s. so interesting leyla. have they heard about president trump s plans to send national guard troops to the border? reporter: every one i spoke to said they knew of president trump s tweets, that he s not happy about the caravan heading north. some knew about the troops. those that didn t, when i mentioned them, they said that can t stop us. if there are troops on the border, we ll wait it out and find another way. so great to have you on the ground so we know what s happening. thank you for that reporting.
border to seek asylum. is that the goal, leyla? first of all, how many are there, do you think? are they all going to attempt to seek asylum in the u.s.? reporter: how many there are, that depends on who you talk to. a bit of conflicting reports. according to the organizers with a big chunk of the group, they are saying we have about 1,000 people. we will see today. we ll find out today in puebla. the priest at this church says they have a small group of about 30. some of the women and other groups are being housed in other churches around here. in terms of how many there are, i think we ll get a better grasp today. how many plan to continue to the u.s.-mexico border, again, of those who spoke to here, all but two of the 30. many have been granted permission by the mexico government to stay here in mexico. so that is what some folks are
as the caravan went up. several of the group a lot of people in the group are going to stay in mexico. others are going to ask for asylum at the border. other people, slightly smaller, were going to try to cross. but those numbers right now are very in flux so i don t know. to be honest, i don t know how many of these people are left at this point, before the trump tweets. it s very easy when we talk about these matters, we do have laws that have to be enforced. the asylum-seeking process is complicated, resulting in short term stays on our border before ultimate adjudication and resolution of these matters. you also have so many people who are coming from really tough circumstances, both economic as you say, there s domestic situations that are violent,