Kris Kobach: Congress Must Fund Wall 'Right Now' in Midst of Caravan

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach says in the midst of a caravan of 7,000 to 10,000 Central American migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Republican-controlled Congress should immediately fund a border wall and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must enlist police to aid U.S. Border Patrol.

During an interview with SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Sunday, Kobach — who is being petitioned to lead DHS — said that the Trump administration, in dealing with a caravan of migrants at the southern border, must enlist state and police to beef up manpower and demand the Republican-controlled Congress fund a border wall.

Kobach said:

Back in 1996, we had a really excellent statute passed by Congress which was called the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act … Congress also said that the Secretary of Homeland Security … has the authority to give state and local police the powers, privileges, and duties of ICE officers and Border Patrol officers if there is a mass influx of aliens, either at a border, a land border, or a sea border. [Emphasis added]

Congress thought ahead 22 years ago and envisioned that something like this might happen and lo and behold, it’s happening before our very eyes. I think it’s time for the Department of Homeland Security to use this power because having spoken with ICE and Border Patrol agents … they’re saying they are overwhelmed, they need help, they need manpower down there. And this ability to enlist local and state law enforcement to help is exactly what Congress put into place 22 years and I think we should be using it. [Emphasis added]

Kobach said that rather than focusing on “pet projects” of particular congressmen, the Republican-controlled House and Senate should be spending their last weeks in the majority funding Trump’s proposed border wall.

“If there is anything that should be at the top of the list to do, while Republicans control both houses, it should be pushing along the effort to build the wall,” Kobach said.

“Whether it be funding, whether it be any legislation that is necessary to strengthen our border in addition to the wall, Kobach continued. “It has to be done right now. That is the number one promise that Donald Trump made and that is the number one thing that pro-Trump legislators in Congress are associated with, that we robustly enforce our laws, that should be at the top of the list.”

Listen to Kobach’s full interview here:

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has overseen enormous illegal immigration influxes at the southern border, as Breitbart News recently noted, where last month saw the most southwest border crossings in a single month since April 2014.

At the same time, the Trump administration has failed to effectively lobby the Republican-controlled Congress to fund a wall, more Border Patrol, and more Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to deal with the illegal immigration influx.