Texas Governor Rick Perry joined CNN’s Candy Crowley on “State of the Union” Sunday to discuss the immigration crisis at the nation’s southern border and express his disapproval of President Obama’s inaction on the issue.
Perry specifically pointed to the “substantial crimes” committed by individuals crossing into the country illegally as cause for great concern.
“What we are substantially more concerned about in the state of Texas, and I will suggest to you across this country, are the 80 percent-plus of individuals who don’t get talked about enough, that are coming in to the United States illegally, and committing substantial crimes,” detailed Perry. “Since September of ’08, we have seen 203,000 individuals who have illegally come into the United States — into Texas — booked in to Texas county jails.”
He emphasized this as reason enough for the government to secure the border in order to staunch the flow of illegal immigrants into the country.
“These individuals are responsible for over 3,000 homicides and almost 8,000 sexual assaults,” continued Perry. “I wish the president would respect that desire of Texans and the citizens of this country to secure the border. That’s the real issue here, and one that all too often gets deflected by the conversation about unaccompanied minor children.”
Perry identified his decision to deploy 1,000 National Guard troops to his state’s border as an effort to make his citizens “feel that at least the leadership in the state of Texas is doing something to try to make their community safer.”
When Candy Crowley questioned Perry’s 3,000 homicide figure, the Texas governor stuck to his assertions and reiterated his responsibility to keep his citizens safe by deploying the National Guardsmen to the border.
“We’ll continue to do what we have to do to keep our citizens safe,” Perry said. “And let me go back to those numbers. You know, what are the number of — I do stand by them, by the way — but what are the number of homicides acceptable to those individuals? How many sexual assaults do we have to have before the president of the United States and Washington, D.C., acts to keep our citizens safe?”
The Texas governor suggested that securing the border is particularly “what the American people want” out of the federal government.
“[Americans would] like to see a president who leads this country and says, ‘You know what, we do have a problem on our southern border. We’re going to deal with it,'” explained Perry. “And the president refuses to lead on this, from my perspective.”
The former Republican presidential candidate also refuted the idea that his calling of the National Guardsmen to the border is part of a potential run for president in 2016.
“It hasn’t got anything to do with anything other than the American citizens [that] expect Washington to respect the Constitution and secure the border, one of the things that’s actually enumerated in the Constitution,” Perry told Crowley. “We’d like for them to do their duty.”
The House of Representatives passed two bills to address the border crisis Friday before Congress went on recess, but President Obama is now insisting that he will “act alone” to fix the problem. Such lone action will undoubtedly fuel House Republicans as they plan to pursue a lawsuit against Obama for his overuse of executive power.
