President Trump: No More DACA Deal, GOP Must Go 'Nuclear'

Updated | President Donald Trump announced Sunday that he would pursue tougher immigration rules and work to squash any negotiations on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA.

"Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. 'Caravans' coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL," he tweeted.

In the past, the president was outwardly supportive of DACA, a program that protects eligible immigrant youth and immigrants that came to the U.S. at a young age from deportation. Nearly 800,000 young immigrants, known as Dreamers, have received protection through the initiative.

In September, the president ended the program but asked Congress to work to enact legislation that supported it. "As I've said before, we will resolve the DACA issue with heart and compassion—but through the lawful democratic process—while at the same time ensuring that any immigration reform we adopt provides enduring benefits for the American citizens we were elected to serve," he said.

The president has had his eyes set on the "nuclear option," or a change to Senate rules, for some time now. The change would allow Congress to move bills forward with a simple majority instead of the required three-fifths majority.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he is against this idea, but the president often discusses it. At a meeting with young Republicans last month, he asked students to work to allow for a simple majority. "We have to, by the way, get rid of the filibuster situation going on in the Senate," he told them. "You look at some of the votes. We'd get so many if you could work that with youth to get rid of it."

The president also threatened to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) if Mexico did not increase its border security, and said that "ridiculous liberal" Democrats were preventing U.S. border security agents from doing their jobs.

"Mexico is doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S. They laugh at our dumb immigration laws," he wrote. "They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!"

It's likely that the president was responding to a segment aired on Fox & Friends, a show the president watches and tweets about regularly. On Sunday, the show discussed a story about a "caravan of illegal immigrants" headed to the U.S. The story, first reported by Buzzfeed last week, explained that a group of more than 1,000 Central American immigrants was heading through Mexico toward the U.S. in a caravan to seek asylum.

Correction: An earlier version of this story implied that the caravan was a story only covered by Fox & Friends and unconfirmed. In fact, the caravan, organized by Pueblo Sin Fronteras, has been widely covered by news media.