President Donald Trump pointed to the one in three women sexually assaulted on the journey through Mexico to the U.S. southern border as evidence of the humanitarian crisis.

“One in 3 women are sexually assaulted on the dangerous trek up through Mexico,” Trump said in his address, adding, “Women and children are the biggest victims by far of our broken system.” A recent Trump Administration Congressional Border Security Briefing cited a statistic that 31 percent of women are “sexually assaulted on the journey north.” The briefing also cited the 17 percent of men sexually assaulted on the journey and seven in ten of those arriving illegally are “victims of violence along the journey.”

Of the 266,000 illegal aliens with criminal records ICE has arrested in the past two years, the president said this includes, “those charged or convicted of 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes and 4,000 violent killings.”

“Over the years, thousands of Americans have been brutally killed by those who illegally entered our country, and thousands more lives will be lost if we don’t act right now,” he warned.

“This is a humanitarian crisis – a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul,” Trump declared of the crisis at the U.S. southern border.

The president pointed also to the 20,000 migrant children brought illegally into the United States in December alone, “a dramatic increase.” He alerted that “These children are used as human pawns by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs.”

“This is the tragic reality of illegal immigration on our Southern Border,” said president Trump. “This is the cycle of human suffering I am determined to end.”

The Trump administration “has presented Congress with a detailed proposal to secure the border and stop the criminal gangs, drug smugglers and human traffickers,” said Trump. He said the plan “was developed by law enforcement professionals and border agents at the Department of Homeland Security. These are the resources they have requested to properly perform their mission and keep America safe – in fact, safer than ever before.”

Michelle Moons is a White House Correspondent for Breitbart News — follow on Twitter @MichelleDiana and Facebook