Former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, who served under the Obama administration, admitted Thursday the border crisis has resulted in a “hemispheric shift” in “multiple places” as cities across the country grapple with the surge of illegal immigration.
“It’s a crisis on the southern border in Texas, in Arizona, and it’s a crisis here in midtown Manhattan, just a few blocks away,” Johnson told Fox and Friends in an interview. “You can see migrants by the Roosevelt Hotel, on the subways at Times Square. This is extended nationwide. Now, the issue is, what do we do about it? Do we continue to play politics and scream about this issue or do we fix the problem? There are solutions to this problem, but given our politics, they become politically unobtainable solutions.”
Johnson’s comments come as President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are both set to visit the southern border Thursday. Biden will visit Brownsville, Texas, and the former president will head to Eagle’s Pass. Immigration has become a top concern for voters who, along with Republican lawmakers, have been putting pressure on Biden to secure the border as illegal immigration continues to overwhelm the country’s sanctuary cities.
“We had 250,000 apprehensions in one month my second year in office, we had 315,000 apprehensions in all of the year 2015,” Johnson said in the interview. “Just for some perspective here. I understand the numbers have dropped a bit of late, but longer-term big picture, this is a hemispheric shift northward. It’s a crisis on multiple levels in multiple places.”
Johnson supported the bipartisan border package, calling it the “strongest bill we’ve seen in a generation” and that it would secure the border. The White House and Democrat lawmakers have been pressing House Speaker Mike Johnson and hard-line conservatives to approve the deal, which would also send money to Ukraine and Israel.
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“We have a solution at hand… Let’s embrace it. Let’s vote on it. Let’s get it done,” Johnson said. “I guarantee that if that legislation became law, the numbers would drop, because we’ve addressed the problem, and because people in Central and South America are seeing that we are addressing the problem.”
Since Biden took office in 2021, there have been 7,550,836 southwest land border encounters, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data reported by Fox News.
