Former Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) advocated defunding the president’s executive action on immigration, but wasn’t clear on what to do with the illegal immigrants already in the US on Wednesday’s “Sean Hannity Show.”
Perry did blast the president’s “very questionable, if not illegal” executive action on immigration, saying that it endangers the rule of law and that Congress should pass a funding bill defunding the action and dare the president to shut down DHS in order to preserve the order.
When asked whether he would “reverse the president’s amnesty for DREAMers” and what he would do with the illegal immigrants who arrived in the US last year, Perry responded “they showed up because of policies that this president put in place, whether it was DACA — we sent a signal to Central America — ‘send people up here, have them cross the border, throw their hands up, and we’ll take care of them.’ And both diplomatically and otherwise, that message needs to sent and said ‘listen — you’re going to come into the United States through a thoughtful, rule of law process, you’re not going to cross the border illegally.’ And the first thing you have to do is secure the border. And Sean, you’ve been there, you’ve seen, it can be secured, 150 miles of that southern region of the United States and Mexico is where the bulk of, more than half of, the apprehensions are occurring, you focus there, which we did, with deploying our National Guard troops there…we basically had [a] massive decrease in the number of apprehensions. You secure the border, and at that particular point in time, those foreign countries and individuals know, ‘listen, you can’t just walk across the border,’ you’re not going to take a 1,500 mile trip across Mexico, on the back of a train, if you know, you’re not going to get in.”
He also appeared to advocate ending the filibuster, stating that the gridlock over DHS funding “is about 40 individuals by rule that have basically been able to block legislation, I don’t think that’s right. I think this country’s got to get back to a majority rule type of a concept and get things done, Americans want to see action, they want issues addressed.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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