Andrew Cuomo: ‘Southern States Were Right’ that Opening the Border Created ‘Hardship’

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks at a vaccination site on Monday, March 8, 2021, in New Y
Seth Wenig, Pool/AP Photo

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) believes President Biden is making a “mistake” in the way he is handling the southern border, even admitting in the latest episode of his podcast that “southern states were right” about the hardship opening the border would cause.

The disgraced Cuomo, who pardoned several illegal  aliens with criminal convictions during his time as governor of the Empire State, criticized Biden’s handling of the southern border crisis during an episode of his podcast Matter of Fact.
The episode featured what a summary describes as an “in-depth look at the problems at the U.S. southern border and the chaos it is creating for cities and states across the nation.”

“It was a mistake for President Biden to open the border without having a plan to handle the tremendous flow of people,” the former governor said during the episode, criticizing Biden for essentially removing Trump-era immigration policies without having a solid plan to handle the influx of migrants pouring over the southern border. For greater perspective, as of October 2022, 5.5 million individuals had been “encountered” at the southern border since Biden took office. Perhaps what is more, roughly 800,000 border crossers have been released into the United States without a court date since Biden took office.

“President Biden had said he would do it in the campaign — but you can’t change a policy unless you have the program in place to manage the change,” Cuomo said of Biden, as his “Catch and Release” network has released tens of thousands of border crossers into the U.S. interior — a move most Americans oppose.

Although Cuomo disagrees with states such as Texas busing border crossers to blue jurisdictions, he admitted that “southern states were right that opening the border created a tremendous hardship for them to handle.”

“They were right that the federal government was not prepared,” the Democrat said, identifying the immigration crisis as a “federal problem” and “federal responsibility.”

Former President Trump, who formally jumped into the presidential ring in November, called on Congress to take “three crucial actions” to address the immigration crisis. Those include passing a ban on any president from using taxpayer dollars to release illegal aliens into the U.S. interior, making Trump-era border security reforms — including Remain in Mexico — permanent, and establishing “CRIMINAL PENALTIES for any senior official or political appointee who orders, aids, or abets the mass release of illegal aliens into the United States”:

During his time in office, Cuomo remained soft on illegal immigration, even approving budget deals giving billions in taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal aliens who lost their jobs during the coronavirus in New York.

As Breitbart News reported at the time:

While more than a million jobs have been lost in New York and an estimated 80,000 New York businesses may not make it to the end of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, Cuomo and elected state Democrats agreed on a budget deal that provides billions to illegal aliens at the taxpayers’ expense.

Specifically, according to the New York Times, the state budget includes $2.1 billion in taxpayer-funded one-time payments in the form of stimulus checks and unemployment-style benefits for about 187,000 illegal aliens — about $1.1 billion more than small businesses are set to get in grants and tax credits after being forced to close by Cuomo’s economic lockdowns.

The budget also provides about $2.3 billion in federal funds for tenants who have been behind on rent as a result of Cuomo’s lockdowns, just $200,000,000 more than what illegal aliens will receive.

Cuomo’s latest remarks come well over a year after being forced to resign following a sexual harassment scandal that rocked his administration. Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) continues to beg border crossers, who were put up in Manhattan’s Watson Hotel, to relocate to shelters. 

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