Top Trump administration officials, eager to continue their immigration containment policies into a second term, are warning that a shift in the direction pursued by President-elect Joe Biden will turn the United States-Mexico border into an illegal immigrant crisis again.
With a “been there, seen that” approach, officials said that there are already indications of a coming border rush by illegal immigrants who believe Biden will be the next president and will take a more liberal open-door approach than former President Barack Obama.
“Joe Biden has already planted the fast-growing seeds of his first humanitarian crisis by saying they wouldn’t deport anybody for 100 days,” Acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said.
The Trump admin put its promises into action to keep the American people safe & secure:
✅ Completing 400 miles of new wall
✅ Effectively ended “catch and release”
✅ Stopping flow of deadly drugs
✅ Protecting the American worker by enforcing visa laws. pic.twitter.com/oHmoJ8TwTP— Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli (@HomelandKen) November 2, 2020
In an interview, he said that a “Biden effect” could lead to more than 1 million migrants rushing into the country next year, jeopardizing the economy, jobs, and healthcare.
“I mean, you saw the ‘Trump effect’ when President Trump came into office. You’re going to see the ‘Biden effect’ as well. And it’s going to be the opposite. And they’re feeding that, and it’s really bad for America. It’s going to be a humanitarian problem, particularly in the midst of COVID,” he added.
In warning against a Biden presidency and a Democratic takeover of the Senate, Cuccinelli predicted that liberalization of the border and an expansion of legal immigration, as proposed by Biden, would lead to a surge of more than 140,000 migrants a month into the U.S.
Border security is national security! pic.twitter.com/uESNEw3QQo
— CBP Mark Morgan (@CBPMarkMorgan) November 3, 2020
And with the coronavirus pandemic expected to peak in January, which hosts Inauguration Day, he said the health crisis could cripple border towns. “They’re going to explode the situation at the border and in border communities,” Cuccinelli said.
Biden has promised to reverse most of the Trump immigration agenda, including defunding wall construction, expanding visas and refugee caps, granting amnesty to more than 600,000 younger illegal immigrants who fall under Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and putting limits on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
He also plans to kill the deals that Trump negotiated with Mexico and other nations to hold immigrants headed to the U.S. in exchange for free trade.
Cuccinelli said that opening the door to legal and illegal immigration will reverse Trump’s economic successes that have pushed poverty down to historic lows.
Trump, he said, is “the best president for poor people in this country in our adult lifetimes, at least. And that’s whether you’re black, Hispanic, white, Asian. He was good for everybody.”
He added, “Opening either door is harmful to American workers, period. Those are in a direct competition for jobs that Americans need right now today and will for the next year, at least. So, if you see those kinds of policies on the legal immigration side where they throw the door open there to that, that is immediately interpretable as political virtue-signaling at the absolute expense of American workers.”
