He calls the southern border a "pipeline" for drugs.
Trump, seemingly reading from a teleprompter, says 20,000 immigrant children were brought illegally to the United States last year.
He says his administration has presented Congress with a proposal to secure the border and stop the criminals.
He says the plan was developed by law enforcement professionals.
By any available measure, there is no new crisis at the border.
Apprehensions of people trying to cross the southern border peaked most recently at 1.6 million in 2000 and have been in decline since, partly because of technology upgrades, tougher penalties post-9/11, a decline in migration rates from Mexico and a sharp rise in the number of Border Patrol officers.
Customs and Border Protection reported 303,916 apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border for fiscal 2017, the lowest in more than 45 years. In fiscal 2018, apprehensions increased 396,579, but that was less than half the total of 2007.