President Trump on Twitter: “With so much talk about the Wall, people are losing sight of the great job being done on our Southern Border by Border Patrol, ICE and our great Military. Remember the Caravans? Well, they didn’t get through and none are forming or on their way. Border is tight. Fake News silent!”

First Read: “So if the border is tight, why the wall?”

After dropping demands for border wall funding, President Trump tweeted that Republicans will win on the divisive issue “one way or the other.”

Said Trump: “In our Country, so much money has been poured down the drain, for so many years, but when it comes to Border Security and the Military, the Democrats fight to the death. We won on the Military, which is being completely rebuilt. One way or the other, we will win on the Wall!”

A new Quinnipiac poll finds American voters oppose building a wall on the Mexican border by 54% to 43%.

However, this is the highest level of support for the wall since the poll first asked the question in November 2016.

First Read: “For all the talk about Trump’s border-wall demand in the current fight to keep the government open, it’s worth reminding everyone of the GOP’s midterm performance in the states along the U.S.-Mexico border. That performance? It wasn’t that great.”

• In California, the GOP got wiped out, losing seven House seats, the gubernatorial race, and Republicans didn’t even have a candidate in the Senate matchup due to the state’s Top 2 primary system.
• In Arizona, the GOP won the gubernatorial race, but it lost a Senate seat, as well as the competitive AZ-2 House contest.
• In New Mexico, Democrats won up and down the ballot – for governor, senator, and it picked up the NM-2 House seat.
• And in Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz barely won his Senate race, while Democrats picked up two congressional seats outside of Dallas (TX-32) and Houston (TX-7).

“Now much of that poor performance by the GOP could be attributed to the sizable portion of the Latino vote in these four states, or the Dem performance in the suburbs in Dallas, Houston and Phoenix. But as President Trump tried to make the last weeks of the midterms about immigration and that caravan, note the states where that message appeared to fall flat — the ones closest to the border.”

“The Trump administration is resuming its efforts to deport certain protected Vietnamese immigrants who have lived in the United States for decades—many of them having fled the country during the Vietnam War,” The Atlantic reports.

“This is the latest move in the president’s long record of prioritizing harsh immigration and asylum restrictions, and one that’s sure to raise eyebrows—the White House had hesitantly backed off the plan in August before reversing course. In essence, the administration has now decided that Vietnamese immigrants who arrived in the country before the establishment of diplomatic ties between the United States and Vietnam are subject to standard immigration law—meaning they are all eligible for deportation.”

“President Trump started by bragging about how great border security is going under his watch. That, by the way, is with no wall. If it were truly the case, as the president said, that border security is better than it’s ever been, what’s wrong with another year of the same funding? If things are going so great, why does he have to threaten to shut down the government for his $5 billion wall? It makes no sense.”

— Sen. Chuck Schumer, quoted by NBC News, arguing that President Trump lives in a “cocoon of his own mistruth” and that he and Nancy Pelosi “had to puncture that cocoon and he threw a temper tantrum because of it.”

President Trump suggested the U.S. military would construct a wall at the U.S. border with Mexico if Democrats refused to agree to provide funding for one, hours ahead of a critical meeting at the White House with Democratic leaders to negotiate a year-end spending bill, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Said Trump on Twitter: “I look forward to my meeting with Chuck Schumer & Nancy Pelosi. In 2006, Democrats voted for a Wall, and they were right to do so. Today, they no longer want Border Security. They will fight it at all cost, and Nancy must get votes for Speaker. But the Wall will get built.”

“The Trump administration is considering charging immigrants a fee to apply for asylum protection in the United States,” BuzzFeed News reports.

“The proposal, included in a not-yet-finalized draft regulation, would charge applicants, if they are already residing in the US, $50 to apply for asylum. Currently, there is no fee to enter an ‘affirmative asylum’ application. The fee would not apply to those who claim a fear of persecution at ports of entry or those who apply for the protections while in deportation proceedings. There would be no waiver of the fee for those who cannot afford to pay the $50.”