Speaking to the press at a roundtable discussion on tax reform in West Virginia, US President Donald Trump returned to the theme that underpinned his presidential campaign - which he opened by vowing to keep out Mexican "rapists."
"Remember my opening remarks at Trump Tower, when I opened everyone said 'Oh, he was so tough.' I used the word rape," Mr Trump said during a meandering monologue on migration at an event in West Virginia.
"And yesterday it came out that, this journey coming up, women are raped at levels nobody's ever seen before," he added without giving further details.
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Mr Trump also went back to a campaign staple of urging "rough justice" for people who come to America illegally and boasted immigration officials were "so much tougher" than those they pursue.
"They're grabbing them by the necks and throwing them into paddy wagons," he said.
"People are clapping and screaming, their townsmen liberated - it's like a war."
On Thursday, Mr Trump said he wants to send 2,000 to 4,000 troops to the border with Mexico, giving a first indication of the size of the surprise deployment.
That could spell a long deployment, with costs that Trump admitted the White House was still "looking at."
Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have balked at taxpayers funding the wall project. They have provided less than a tenth of the $18 billion Trump requested.
