President Joe Biden’s migration crisis at the United States-Mexico border is the epitome of an “America last” agenda, former President Donald Trump said Sunday.
In a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Trump assailed Biden’s immigration executive orders that have helped drive up illegal immigration levels at the southern border.
“In just one short month, we have gone from ‘America First’ to ‘America Last’ … there is no better example than the new and horrible crisis on our southern border,” Trump said.
Specifically, Trump noted Biden’s stopping construction of the border wall, restarting the Catch and Release program, and halting most interior immigration enforcement — actions and promises of which illegal aliens are now taking advantage.
“We ended Catch and Release, ended asylum fraud, and brought illegal crossings to historic lows,” Trump said. “When illegal aliens trespassed across our borders, they were promptly caught, detained, and sent back home.”
“It took the new administration only a few weeks to turn this unprecedented accomplishment into a self-inflicted humanitarian and national security disaster,” Trump continued:
By recklessly eliminating our border, security measures, controls, all of the things we put into place, Joe Biden has triggered a massive flood of illegal immigration into our country … they’re coming up by the tens of thousands. They’re all coming to take advantage of the things that he said. That’s luring everybody to come to America.
And we’re one country, we can’t afford the problems of the world.
Biden, since taking office in late January, has ended the Remain in Mexico policy, restarted the Catch and Release program, and canceled cooperative asylum agreements with Central America.
The result has been a surge of illegal immigration to the southern border and mass releases of border crossers into the U.S. interior — many without being required to test negative for the Chinese coronavirus. In January, for example, border apprehensions jumped nearly 160 percent and marked the highest level of illegal immigration for the month since January 2006.
As Breitbart News reported, the Biden administration is slowly releasing about 25,600 migrants enrolled in the Remain in Mexico program into the U.S. interior. Those migrants are being released into San Diego, California, and El Paso and Brownsville, Texas.
Border crossers not enrolled in Remain in Mexico do not have to undergo coronavirus tests and many do not have to adhere to quarantine requirements. In the first ten days of February, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released at least 2,000 border crossers into the U.S. interior. For comparison, in December 2020 before Remain in Mexico was ended, DHS had released just 11 border crossers.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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